Wehabrebi’s leads have led to a number of discoveries, including an illegal hawala payment system that was run out of a small five-and-dime perfume shop near Rome’s Termini station with connections to agents in Dubai and Israel. Investigators set up hidden cameras in the shop and were able to uncover the intricate financial system for traffickers.On Wednesdays and Saturdays, agents from Ethiopia apparently would deliver massive sums of dollars and euros that had been received illegally. In a manner typical of this ancient informal means of transferring, or laundering, money, those payments were logged in a simple appointment book kept among the bottles of cheap shampoo and toothpaste.The cash represented payments by various refugees and migrants who had escaped the official reception centers, according to Renato Cortese, the lead investigator on the Sicilian investigative team that led the sting operation.Most refugees and migrants pay all or part of their sea travel in cash in North Africa, but are required to pay the rest for further travel into Europe when they arrive in Italy.A similar shop was found in Palermo, Sicily, where migrants often gather to find work in the black market agriculture and illegal drug sectors.Officers in Rome confiscated €526,000 and $25,000 dollars in cash along with the log book from the Rome store.
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