Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1008, Money Laundering.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1008.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
© transcript Emily Beynon Take a look at our ESL podcast blog while you're there.
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This episode is a dialogue between Susanna and about someone who's trying to do something illegal with money.
Let's get started.
You heard right.
The cops had long suspected that the business operating out of that office wasn't legit.
Not legit?
Yeah, it was a front for money laundering.
The so-called services it offered were a sham.
It was a way for people to send them dirty money and for the business to legitimize those funds.
But who was involved?
I'm not sure, but I imagine they're people who want to evade taxes or to circumvent certain laws or regulations.
I wouldn't be surprised if their clients were people with underworld connections.
You mean organized crime?
Yeah, they're probably drug lords, smugglers, and racketeers.
Wow, and the people who helped them were working next door to us all that time.
And we didn't know a thing about it.
How awful.
How exciting.
Our dialogue begins with Susanna saying to Clark, what's going on in the office next door?
The office next door would be the office that is right next to your office.
We could also talk about the house next door, literally the next door that you would open if you went over a little bit from where you are now.
We talk about our next door neighbor as the person or the house that is immediately next to ours.
Here we're talking about an office next door.
Susanna says, I heard that the police shut down their business.
Clark says, you're right.
The cops had long suspected that the business operating out of that office wasn't legit.
Clark says the police suspected to suspect S-U-S-P-E-C-T is to think that something is true, especially when we're talking about someone doing something wrong or committing a crime, although it could be a situation that is not criminal.
You could say, I suspect that my brother is not very happy living in Minnesota.
I'm not sure.
I don't have proof of that.
I don't have a lot of evidence, we would say of that, but I think it's true.
When the police suspect someone of something, usually they think that person has done something wrong, has done something against the law.
The cops, which is an informal term for the police, had long suspected, meaning they had suspected for a long time that the business operating out of that office was not legit.
Legit, L-E-G-I-T, is short for legitimate, L-E-G-I-T-I-M-A-T-E.
Something that is legitimate is something that is real, something that is valid.
In this case, something that is legal.
The business was doing things that weren't legal.
Susanna says not legit.
Clark says, yeah, it was a front for money laundering.
A front, F-R-O-N-T, is a business or organization that doesn't do what it says it does.
It is established or created or started by in order to hide some sort of illegal activity.
So you might have someone who opens up a store, but the store isn't really for selling food or selling clothing.
Whatever the store sells.
The store is really there in order to do something else, something illegal.
One thing that is illegal is money laundering.
To launder, L-A-U-N-D-E-R, means to clean your clothes.
We talk about taking your clothes to a laundromat, which is a place that has washing machines and drying machines, or simply dryers.
Money laundering is when you take money that you got from doing something illegal and use it in a business that is legal, so that the police won't know where the money really came from.
It looks like it came from this business, even though it was gotten from some sort of illegal activity.
For example, you may be selling drugs illegally and making a lot of money selling these drugs.
You don't want the police to find out about where you got all this money and you want to put the money in a bank or do something with the money.
So you start a business that sells clothing.
You invest the money that you got selling drugs into the clothing store, and then the clothing store makes money.
And now suddenly the money has been laundered.
You can say, well, the money came from my clothing store and it looks, quote unquote, clean.
It looks like it came from a legal operation when in fact it came from you selling drugs.
That would be an example of money laundering.
Clark says the so-called services it offered were a sham.
The expression so-called, C-A-L-L-E-D, means presumably.
It's a phrase we use to refer to something that isn't really true or valid, where you have a name for something that isn't really accurate.
So in this case, the business was selling services, but they weren't really services.
And so Clark uses the term so-called.
For example, you could talk about giving money money to a government official in order to get the government official to do something for you.
This is illegal.
You could call it a gift, however.
Someone would then refer to that gift as your so-called gift because it isn't really a gift.
It is, in fact, what we would call a bribe B-R-I-B-E, when you give money to a government official to do something for you.
In most countries, bribes are illegal, which does not mean they're not common.
The business here offered certain services that weren't really services at all.
These services are what Clark calls a sham, S-H-A-M.
Something that is a sham is something that is fake, something that is false, something that is not what it appears to be.
Clark says it was a way for people to send them dirty money and for the business to legitimize those funds.
Dirty money would be money that you obtained or got from doing something illegal.
To legitimize L-E-G-I-T-I-M-I-Z-E is to make legitimate, to make it seem as though, in this case, it were legal.
Susanna asks, but who was involved?
Clark says, I'm not sure, but I imagine, I'm guessing.
They're people who want to evade taxes or to circumvent certain laws or regulations.
To evade, E-V-A-D-E, is to avoid something.
To evade taxes is to avoid paying money to the government that you have to pay them.
If you work...
In the United States, for example, you have to pay taxes to the US government, a certain percentage of your money to the government, so the government has money to waste on other things.
No, I'm just joking.
The government needs money.
It just doesn't always spend the money very wisely.
But back to our story.
Clark says that...
This front was used by people who wanted to evade taxes or to circumvent certain laws or regulations.
To circumvent C-I-R-C-U-M-V-E-N-T means to go around something.
But here it really means the same as to evade.
It means to avoid doing something.
Clark says I wouldn't be surprised if their clients were people with underworld connections.
The term underworld U-N-D-E-R-W-O-R-L-D refers to the world of criminals, the world of illegal activities by criminals.
Susanna says you mean organized crime.
Organized crime refers to groups of criminals who organize, who have an organization that is used to commit crimes.
You may have organized crime involved in selling drugs.
There isn't just one person who goes and finds drugs and sells them to another person.
It's usually part of an organization And these organizations, as you probably know, can be very dangerous and very powerful.
Clark says, yeah, they're probably drug lords, smugglers, and racketeers.
The term drug lord refers to a very powerful person who is involved in this organization in organized crime selling drugs.
A smuggler S-M-U-G-G-L-E-R is a person who brings things into a country illegally, against the law.
If you are smuggling in drugs to the United States, you are bringing these illegal drugs in here without permission.
A racketeer, R-A-C-K-E-T-E-E-R, is a person who is involved in illegal business activities, often involving some sort of violent crime.
The term racketeer is used in a very broad way to refer to people who are doing things illegal in terms of running a business.
Susanna says, wow, and the people who helped them were working next door to us all that time.
She is amazed that the people that were working in the office next door were part of this illegal activity.
Clark says, and we didn't know a thing about it.
How awful.
When we say something is awful, A-W-F-U-L, nowadays we mean it's terrible, it's horrible, it's very unpleasant.
Clark thinks this entire situation is awful.
Susanna says, however, how exciting.
She thinks that it's exciting rather than awful.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What's going on in the office next door?
I heard that the police shut down their business.
You heard right.
The cops had long suspected that the business operating out of that office wasn't legit.
Not legit?
Yeah, it was a front for money laundering.
The so-called services it offered were a sham.
It was a way for people to send them dirty money and for the business to legitimize those funds.
But who was involved?
I'm not sure, but I imagine they're people who want to evade taxes or to circumvent certain laws or regulations.
I wouldn't be surprised if their clients were people with underworld connections.
You mean organized crime?
Yeah, they're probably drug lords, smugglers, and racketeers.
Wow, and the people who helped them were working next door to us all that time.
And we didn't know a thing about it.
How awful.
How exciting.
I don't suspect our scriptwriter is the best scriptwriter on the web.
I know.
Thank you, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening. back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
