
160 Money Laundering: A Guide for Criminal Investigators, Third Edition
the values of the major currencies “oat,” climbing or falling
with demand.
All of the world’s currencies are benchmarked or referenced
against the US dollar, and they trade on either the spot or the
forward market. The spot price is what the currency is selling
for, in dollars, as of that moment. Don’t come back 10 minutes
from now and expect to get the same price because things
change quickly in the foreign exchange business. In the for-
ward market, currencies are exchanged on an “outright” basis:
Units of currency are bought and sold based on the anticipated
value ...