"Trade finance depends entirely on documents," he said in a presentation on shipping and trading frauds at a shipping conference organised by the Sri Lanka branch of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers to mark its 20th anniversary this week.
Substantial amounts of money can be paid out by banks whose only obligation is to verify that the documents comply with the terms of the credit.
"Any system which depends entirely on documents will be vulnerable to abuse by money launderers."
Once credit complying documents have been presented and payments have been made, purportedly for an international trade transaction, the money thus released would leave a documentary trail and hence, facilitate the i