Computer sales as money laundering schemes
The drug world is always looking to legitimize what is essentially an anti-social activity which reduces the functionality of the social body and body politic. They corrupt officials who are supposed to enforce the law, and at times professionals that are supposed to provide society with the knowledge it needs to keep running. A new factor in this trend appears to be the sale of computers, which are typically associated with the moral middle class and seldom linked to the worst kinds of criminal activity.
The typical money laundering scheme consists basically in selling goods for very cheap prices, which stimulate and abnormal demand for given products. Historically this has been seen in New York City with the sale of fruits and vegetables at small corner stores, which were typically sold at very low prices. This activity undercut the legitimate competition, and brought drug-money into the legitimate economy. After all, the key problem all criminal activity faces is in the introduction of large cash stashes that have been illegitimately gained--hence 'laundering' the money or 'cleaning it' (as in washing and drying clothes at a laundromat).
Yet, these schemes could be 'easily' detected because they typically dealt with the underclass, minorities and other 'sub-groups' in society. Drug enfacement agencies typically have their eye on the economically marginalized because they tend to have the greatest incentives to enter the money economy. (Being poor, drug money is a 'quick fix' to gain economic resources and the alleged social benefits these resources conniver).
However, the emphasis on the economically marginal tends to draw attention away from other activities which are more noxious to the social fabric, because they entail precisely those social actors that are supposed to guarantee the legitimacy of social transactions: the middle class. This is where computers come into play.
The sale of computers are not typically associated with money laundering, but they should be. It is in fact irrelevant to the money launder what is being sold to launder money; fruit and vegetables have a low value, hence they tend to 'fly under the radar' (until detected by relevant authorities). But it doesn't really matter what is sold, as long as it achieves its nefarious purposes. The same thing might be said of computers--which again are typically associated with the middle classes and with professional activity, and hence 'under the radar' of the relevant authorities.
If you are a close observant of computer prices, however, you can notice aberrantly low sale prices in certain computer stores and brands, which have been going no for some time in Puerto Rico. In fact, these prices are so low, that it puzzled many observers and members of they computing community how they could be so absurdly low. It was clear that some type of subsidy was going on, but doing so would have entailed losses to the subsidizer. It is a puzzle until you consider the gains that would be had by the sale of such computers: money launder.
So, the next time you buy a computer, make sure that the savings you are gaining by buying 'low' are not in fact donations to the noxious drug gangs.