Operation: Melittology
Dec. 3rd, 2007 11:23 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsRemy and Sofia try to track down where Strucker and Oomes money is coming in and going out of.
"Where did you say dat you knew dis woman from again?" Remy said as they walked up the stairwell in the fashionable Upper West Side building. He'd been surprised when Sofia had mentioned that she had a contact that could untangle the complex money transfers in the short time frame they needed. It had been an admission of trust for her, handing over the data and letting her send it out. However, good as her word, it had only taken a few hours for her to knock on Remy's office door with instructions to get his coat and follow her.
"I didn't," she replied easily, taking the steps two at a time. Sofia paused on a landing, waiting for him to catch up, without looking too much like she, well, was waiting for him to catch up. "She's... a family connection," she admitted when they'd started again, trying to keep the startled look off her own face.
Remy raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Family connection? What sort of family had connections with professional money trackers? They reached the door and rapped on it. A moment later, a short, dark haired woman opened it.
"Sofia. So nice to finally meet you. And this must be Pepe?"
"It must. I'd ask him to say something for you, but I'm afraid it would probably be very rude." She smiled sweetly at the Cajun beside her, laying a hand on his shoulder. "May we come in?"
"Of course. Leave your shoes, just wipe them as best you can, please," the stranger replied, gesturing them in.
Sofia perched herself lightly on one side of a sleek couch, eerily similar to the one she herself owned, watching Remy scuff his shoes with wry amusement. Her gaze flickered over to the other woman to find her doing the same, already seated in a large, brown leather chair. "Thank you for doing this for us, Maria. Especially on such short notice."
"Well, I am charging you for the rush. It wasn't easy. However set up those accounts is used to funneling money covertly all over the world. It was more luck than anything else to uncover what I did."
"And what's dat?"
"Destinations." Maria Khulin held up a candy-apple red zip drive, but not without a flicker of a smile. "I have my total findings here for you, but if you want the summary, the accounts are shifting funds into China."
Sofia exhaled quietly, nodding, although, she wasn't exactly sure at what. She didn't even know whether to be upset or not; China wasn't as directly involved as she thought, which meant another group. Good, they hadn't screwed up the last time. Bad, there was more of them. "And a whole ten more pages of fake names for us to look up, I expect. Wonderful." Their phone bill to Russia was going to be ridiculous this month.
"Something like that."
"China." Remy muttered. It matched the information that the others had dug up. Slavers, with connections into the most populous country in the world. The idea was horrible enough.
"I scoped the accounts a bit. These are shadow accounts; floated through barely existent banks in Macau. Triad and criminal trade mostly. Lots of drug money and illegal gambling get washed through them, as well as arms trade transactions." Khulin shook her head. "We call them cluster chains; lots of little fractured accounts, heavily interconnected on the operational end, but next to impossible to link up from the outside paper or audit trails."
"Mm," Sofia hummed thoughtfully, her mind already somewhere else. China meant a whole new world of possible profiles to write up, both group and individual, and she'd left her notebook in the car. It'd seemed like the polite thing to do at the same. "Good work."
Remy tossed over a CD to the woman. "Verification key. Plug dem in, and de transfer of funds to your account will activate from de escrow dey in. You look like a professional, so I don't need to mention dat our presence isn't a marketable piece of information."
Maria laughed lowly. "Don't worry. My reputation is for money, not gossip."
"Merci." Remy said, headed for the door and collecting a distracted looking Sofia on the way out.
"Where did you say dat you knew dis woman from again?" Remy said as they walked up the stairwell in the fashionable Upper West Side building. He'd been surprised when Sofia had mentioned that she had a contact that could untangle the complex money transfers in the short time frame they needed. It had been an admission of trust for her, handing over the data and letting her send it out. However, good as her word, it had only taken a few hours for her to knock on Remy's office door with instructions to get his coat and follow her.
"I didn't," she replied easily, taking the steps two at a time. Sofia paused on a landing, waiting for him to catch up, without looking too much like she, well, was waiting for him to catch up. "She's... a family connection," she admitted when they'd started again, trying to keep the startled look off her own face.
Remy raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Family connection? What sort of family had connections with professional money trackers? They reached the door and rapped on it. A moment later, a short, dark haired woman opened it.
"Sofia. So nice to finally meet you. And this must be Pepe?"
"It must. I'd ask him to say something for you, but I'm afraid it would probably be very rude." She smiled sweetly at the Cajun beside her, laying a hand on his shoulder. "May we come in?"
"Of course. Leave your shoes, just wipe them as best you can, please," the stranger replied, gesturing them in.
Sofia perched herself lightly on one side of a sleek couch, eerily similar to the one she herself owned, watching Remy scuff his shoes with wry amusement. Her gaze flickered over to the other woman to find her doing the same, already seated in a large, brown leather chair. "Thank you for doing this for us, Maria. Especially on such short notice."
"Well, I am charging you for the rush. It wasn't easy. However set up those accounts is used to funneling money covertly all over the world. It was more luck than anything else to uncover what I did."
"And what's dat?"
"Destinations." Maria Khulin held up a candy-apple red zip drive, but not without a flicker of a smile. "I have my total findings here for you, but if you want the summary, the accounts are shifting funds into China."
Sofia exhaled quietly, nodding, although, she wasn't exactly sure at what. She didn't even know whether to be upset or not; China wasn't as directly involved as she thought, which meant another group. Good, they hadn't screwed up the last time. Bad, there was more of them. "And a whole ten more pages of fake names for us to look up, I expect. Wonderful." Their phone bill to Russia was going to be ridiculous this month.
"Something like that."
"China." Remy muttered. It matched the information that the others had dug up. Slavers, with connections into the most populous country in the world. The idea was horrible enough.
"I scoped the accounts a bit. These are shadow accounts; floated through barely existent banks in Macau. Triad and criminal trade mostly. Lots of drug money and illegal gambling get washed through them, as well as arms trade transactions." Khulin shook her head. "We call them cluster chains; lots of little fractured accounts, heavily interconnected on the operational end, but next to impossible to link up from the outside paper or audit trails."
"Mm," Sofia hummed thoughtfully, her mind already somewhere else. China meant a whole new world of possible profiles to write up, both group and individual, and she'd left her notebook in the car. It'd seemed like the polite thing to do at the same. "Good work."
Remy tossed over a CD to the woman. "Verification key. Plug dem in, and de transfer of funds to your account will activate from de escrow dey in. You look like a professional, so I don't need to mention dat our presence isn't a marketable piece of information."
Maria laughed lowly. "Don't worry. My reputation is for money, not gossip."
"Merci." Remy said, headed for the door and collecting a distracted looking Sofia on the way out.
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