Consider the case of Willie Obront, a Montreal-based money launderer whose activities were exposed by the Quebec Crime Commission in 1977. Obront once claimed to a reporter that the considerable amounts of money passing through his bank accounts were his gambling winnings. The Crime Commission found otherwise that the funds he handled came from organized crime activities. For example, some of the $84.5 million which he's said to have laundered was sent to him in the form of cheques. These cheques were then deposited by Obront and his employees into a series of bank accounts. When the Crime Commission examined some of these transactions, it found a marked lack of artifice. For instance, Obront and his assistants had written on to the bank deposit slips the initials of the owners of the cheques being deposited. This greatly helped investigators piece together the paper trail. Obront's set-up also is in sharp contrast with the more sophisticated types of laundering operations utilized by some Colombian cocaine groups in the 1980s and '90s. The Colombians tend to be extremely careful to avoid drawing attention to themselves. As one law enforcement expert told me: "They hide in plain sight." Obront, however, was less sophisticated. Some companies with which he was linked defied Quebec corporate filing regulations not the kind of thing a sophisticated Colombian money launderer would do. The Colombian money launderer would also avoid creating links between the criminal acts which generate the dirty money and the funds themselves. That is, he would tend to operate through distinct financial compartments, or cells. By contrast, Obront was involved in both criminal activities and in the operations used to launder the resulting profits. As the Crime Commission stated: "...In general, it may be said that the moneys received by Obront represent the activities of himself and his associates in gambling, loan sharking, stock market transactions and kiting..." Thus, he provided a clear link between the money-handling and the money-generating ends of the business. Again, this would be a no-no among the savvy Colombians.