Hi there,
Welcome to this week’s Polar Insider.
Before diving in, a quick update: Polar Insider is moving to a monthly publication schedule. This change allows for deeper, higher quality analysis, focusing on real cases, emerging typologies, and actionable risk insights. The mission remains the same: to help financial crime professionals sharpen their judgment beyond the headlines. Thank you for your continued support.
Now, onto this issue:
We’re examining how online marketplaces are increasingly being exploited as laundering infrastructure by organised criminal groups (OCGs). It’s not that platforms like Amazon or eBay are inherently high risk, but their legitimacy at scale provides cover. When sales volume replaces economic logic, and platform payouts are trusted more than questioned, e-commerce becomes a highly efficient laundering channel. What appears to be retail success can, in reality, be organised crime monetisation.
