Hawala bankers1 are financial service providers who carry out financial transactions without a license and therefore without government control. They accept cash, cheques or other valuable goods (diamonds, gold) at one location and pay a corresponding sum in cash or other remuneration at another location. This service is comparable with services provided by official banks and by non-banking financial institutions such as Western Union and MoneyGram, yet unlike these companies, hawala bankers disregard the legal obligations concerning the identification of clients, record keeping, and the disclosure of unusual transactions, to which these official financial institutions are subject.
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de Bunt, H.v. (2008). The Role of Hawala Bankers in the Transfer of Proceeds from Organised Crime. In: Siegel, D., Nelen, H. (eds) Organized Crime: Culture, Markets and Policies. Studies in Organized Crime, vol 7. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74733-0_9
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