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various law enforcement surveillance initiatives. Assuming the moral correctness and unproblematic
nature of the supply-side approach; the problem is viewed primarily as a technological one; advances in
telecommunications enable drug traffickers and other criminals to circumvent the law. Law enforcement’s
surveillance initiatives are portrayed as defensive responses that will restore control. This is misleading. It
glosses over the fact that the US State’s failed supply-side approach to the illicit drug trade has created the
conditions that have led to the call for these surveillance initiatives. It is the very existence of the supply-
side controls that has made it necessary for many drug traffickers to try to circumvent them, by drawing on
recent development in telecommunications, for example. It is this dynamic, not technical innovation per se
that has exacerbated the money-laundering problem and called forth the recent surveillance initiatives.
These initiatives, which are the product of supply-side escalation, should be viewed as visible
signs of the US State’s resolve that may well create the conditions for further escalation. For example, as
noted above, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, drug trafficking organizations were heavily using electronic
funds transfer systems to launder money. As law enforcement agencies met this challenge by developing
the capability to monitor the various choke points in electronic funds transfer processes, the more
sophisticated drug traffickers responded by adopting a number of strategies to stay one step ahead of law
enforcement. One strategy has been to reduce the risk of detection at the various choke points. For
example, money launderers have attempted to get on the list of those businesses exempted from filing
currency transaction reports (CTRs) -- some type of businesses are automatically exempt because they
generate large amounts of cash. Setting-up or purchasing such a business allows the launderer to make
deposits that avoids scrutiny by FinCEN’s Financial Artificial Intelligence System (Naylor, 2002: 155). As
the risk of laundering money over electronic funds transfers systems has increased, a second strategy has
been to move back to traditional smuggling. In the mid-1990s, the Financial Action Task Force noted an
appreciable rise in the amount of illicit funds moving covertly across borders: "Criminals have shown great
sophistication in these operations, often purchasing businesses engaged in the shipment of goods and hiding
dirty money inside the product" (1996: 5). Yet another strategy has been to shift some laundering
operations to Internet gambling sites. The launderer buys chip in order to gamble, with a credit card, for
example. While the launderer usually loses a percentage of the funds, this is a price he/she is willing to pay
to clean the money. At the end of the gambling session, the launderer cashes in his/her chips and takes
Convention