![\"Chilki-959x543\"](\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/03\/chilki-959x543.jpg?w=620\")
<\/h2>\n<\/h2>\nASHDOD, Israel \u2014 Gilbert Chikli was rolling in money, stolen from some of the world\u2019s biggest corporations. His targets: Accenture. Disney. American Express. In less than two years, he made off with at least 6.1 million euros from France alone.<\/p>\n
But he had a problem. He couldn\u2019t spend the money. A tangle of banking rules designed to stop con men like him stood between Chikli and his cash. He needed to find a weak link in the global financial system, a place to make his stolen money appear legitimate.<\/p>\n
He found it in China.<\/p>\n
\u201cChina has become a universal, international gateway for all manner of scams,\u201d he said in an interview with The Associated Press. \u201cBecause China today is a world power, because it doesn\u2019t care about neighboring countries, and because, overall, China is flipping off other countries in a big way.\u201d<\/p>\n
A visionary con man, Chikli realized early on \u2014 around 2000, the year before China joined the World Trade Organization \u2014 the potential that lay in the shadows of China\u2019s rise, its entrenched corruption and informal banking channels that date back over 1,000 years. The French-Israeli man told the AP he laundered 90 percent of his money through China and Hong Kong, slipping it into the region\u2019s great tides of legitimate trade and finance.<\/p>\n
Today, he is in good company.<\/p>\n
Criminals around the world have discovered that a good way to liberate their dirty money is to send it to China, which is emerging as an international hub for money laundering, an AP investigation has found. Gangs from Israel and Spain, North African cannabis dealers and cartels from Mexico and Colombia are among those using China as a haven where they can safely hide money, clean it, and pump it back into the global financial system, according to police officials, European and US court records and intelligence documents reviewed by the AP.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s central bank and police refused repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n
In a regular briefing with reporters Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the government \u201cplaces great emphasis\u201d on fighting crimes such as money laundering and is working to expand international cooperation. \u201cChina is not, has not been, nor will be in the future a center of global money laundering,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Chikli is widely credited in France with inventing a con that has inspired a generation of copycats. Chikli\u2019s scam, called the fake president or fake CEO scam, has cost companies around the world $1.8 billion in just over two years, according to the FBI. And the damages are rising fast.<\/p>\n