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Rinsed: From Cartels to Crypto: How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World's Deadliest Crooks
For as long as people have been stealing money, there has been an industry ready to wash it. But what happened when our economy went digital? How does the global underworld wash its dirty money in the Internet age?
Rinsed reveals how organized crooks have joined forces with the world’s most sophisticated cybercriminals. The a vast virtual money-laundering machine too intelligent for most authorities to crack. Through a series of jaw-dropping cases and interviews with insiders at all levels of the system, Geoff White shows how thieves are uniting to successfully get away with the most atrocious crimes on an unprecedented scale.
The book follows money from the outrageous luxury of Dubai hotels to sleepy backwaters of coastal Ireland, from the backstreets of Nigeria to the secretive zones of North Korea, to investigate this new cyber supercartel. Through first-hand accounts from the victims of their devastating crimes, White uncovers the extraordinary true story of hi-tech laundering – and exposes its terrible human cost.
Rinsed reveals how organized crooks have joined forces with the world’s most sophisticated cybercriminals. The a vast virtual money-laundering machine too intelligent for most authorities to crack. Through a series of jaw-dropping cases and interviews with insiders at all levels of the system, Geoff White shows how thieves are uniting to successfully get away with the most atrocious crimes on an unprecedented scale.
The book follows money from the outrageous luxury of Dubai hotels to sleepy backwaters of coastal Ireland, from the backstreets of Nigeria to the secretive zones of North Korea, to investigate this new cyber supercartel. Through first-hand accounts from the victims of their devastating crimes, White uncovers the extraordinary true story of hi-tech laundering – and exposes its terrible human cost.
288 pages, Paperback
Published October 14, 2025
76 people are currently reading
148 people want to read
About the author
Geoff White
15 books88 followersGeoff White is an author, speaker, investigative journalist and podcast creator. He has worked for the BBC, Audible, Penguin, Sky News, The Sunday Times and many more. In a career spanning 20 years he has covered everything from billion-dollar cyber heists to global money laundering rings and crypto-gangsters.
His new book, Rinsed, reveals technology’s impact on the world of money laundering and will be published by Penguin Random House in June 2024.
He has given keynote talks for some of the world’s biggest brands, including Microsoft, HSBC, Mastercard, Atos, Orange and Bank of America.
His last book, The Lazarus Heist – From Hollywood to High Finance: Inside North Korea’s Global Cyber War was published by Penguin Random House in June 2022, and is available now on Amazon, Waterstones, and Bookshop.org. It sprang from the hit 10-part BBC podcast series of the same name, which Geoff co-hosted and which immediately ranked number one in the UK Apple chart and within the top 7 in the US.
An experienced public speaker, he has given keynote talks at some of the UK’s largest conferences, in addition to hosting events and chairing panels at venues ranging from London’s Chatham House think-tank to the Latitude music festival.
Geoff’s first book, Crime Dot Com: From Viruses to Vote Rigging, How Hacking Went Global, was published in August 2020 by Reaktion Books and was described as “a fascinating, often gripping read”.
He has written and presented two major podcast series for Audible. The Dark Web exposed the shadow internet created by the US military and now home to hackers, crooks and freedom fighters. It has been a top ten hit on the platform since its launch in 2017. Artificial Intelligence: Friend or Foe? revealed the origins of AI, and showed how the technology is seeping into everyday life.
Geoff’s own podcast series Cybercrime Investigations takes listeners inside the world of an investigative journalist, detailing the twists and turns as the story unfolds.
He was also the co-creator of The Secret Life of Your Mobile Phone, a live, interactive phone hacking stage performance which showed how the global technology industry is harvesting the data leaking from your handset. The show was a sell–out hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017, and has been performed at music festivals, political conferences and for corporate clients.
As the technology correspondent for Channel 4 News, one of the UK’s leading daily news programmes, Geoff won multiple awards for his work on the Snowden leaks, the hacking of Britain’s largest ISP TalkTalk and his exposés of fraud in the internet dating industry. He was the creator of the programme’s Data Baby project, a unique experiment which used a fictional online persona to expose how personal data is used – and abused – online.
His new book, Rinsed, reveals technology’s impact on the world of money laundering and will be published by Penguin Random House in June 2024.
He has given keynote talks for some of the world’s biggest brands, including Microsoft, HSBC, Mastercard, Atos, Orange and Bank of America.
His last book, The Lazarus Heist – From Hollywood to High Finance: Inside North Korea’s Global Cyber War was published by Penguin Random House in June 2022, and is available now on Amazon, Waterstones, and Bookshop.org. It sprang from the hit 10-part BBC podcast series of the same name, which Geoff co-hosted and which immediately ranked number one in the UK Apple chart and within the top 7 in the US.
An experienced public speaker, he has given keynote talks at some of the UK’s largest conferences, in addition to hosting events and chairing panels at venues ranging from London’s Chatham House think-tank to the Latitude music festival.
Geoff’s first book, Crime Dot Com: From Viruses to Vote Rigging, How Hacking Went Global, was published in August 2020 by Reaktion Books and was described as “a fascinating, often gripping read”.
He has written and presented two major podcast series for Audible. The Dark Web exposed the shadow internet created by the US military and now home to hackers, crooks and freedom fighters. It has been a top ten hit on the platform since its launch in 2017. Artificial Intelligence: Friend or Foe? revealed the origins of AI, and showed how the technology is seeping into everyday life.
Geoff’s own podcast series Cybercrime Investigations takes listeners inside the world of an investigative journalist, detailing the twists and turns as the story unfolds.
He was also the co-creator of The Secret Life of Your Mobile Phone, a live, interactive phone hacking stage performance which showed how the global technology industry is harvesting the data leaking from your handset. The show was a sell–out hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017, and has been performed at music festivals, political conferences and for corporate clients.
As the technology correspondent for Channel 4 News, one of the UK’s leading daily news programmes, Geoff won multiple awards for his work on the Snowden leaks, the hacking of Britain’s largest ISP TalkTalk and his exposés of fraud in the internet dating industry. He was the creator of the programme’s Data Baby project, a unique experiment which used a fictional online persona to expose how personal data is used – and abused – online.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 11, 2024
I was undecided between three and four stars, because I genuinely enjoyed reading this book and ALL the money laundering stories (one per chapter). The stories are great and so are most of the characters. The basic framework for money laundering (placement, layering and integration) is clear and consistently applied across all the examples / stories.
I am however a bit unclear on what the core message of this book is. It seems to be that tech and crypto are bad because they don't check well enough what people are doing and / or allow them to move money without asking questions.
However, in response to this the author presents a bunch of stories where the good guys (almost) always won, because they were able to follow the money and catch the bad guys, often using advanced technology. Even crypto transactions were mostly followed through the blockchain until they hit a crypto exchange where accounts were identified.
What does the author want, to ban crypto? Not clear.
Even if it's not that, you'd have to ban or regulate the internet and the whole digital world, if you want to completely prevent the bad stuff from happening.
To say that technology is enabling money laundering is the same as saying people are dying more in plane crashes because we can now fly around the world.
If you want to engage in a serious exercise of figuring out how to regulate tech and crypto better, you'd need to write an entirely new book. It's not this one.
But, going back to the money laundering stories, they are great and worth reading.
I am however a bit unclear on what the core message of this book is. It seems to be that tech and crypto are bad because they don't check well enough what people are doing and / or allow them to move money without asking questions.
However, in response to this the author presents a bunch of stories where the good guys (almost) always won, because they were able to follow the money and catch the bad guys, often using advanced technology. Even crypto transactions were mostly followed through the blockchain until they hit a crypto exchange where accounts were identified.
What does the author want, to ban crypto? Not clear.
Even if it's not that, you'd have to ban or regulate the internet and the whole digital world, if you want to completely prevent the bad stuff from happening.
To say that technology is enabling money laundering is the same as saying people are dying more in plane crashes because we can now fly around the world.
If you want to engage in a serious exercise of figuring out how to regulate tech and crypto better, you'd need to write an entirely new book. It's not this one.
But, going back to the money laundering stories, they are great and worth reading.
November 15, 2025
Eye Opener
Such an eye opener book that so many high profile money laundering cases were enabled by super advanced technology, that average guys like me do not understand its existence and use.
Such an eye opener book that so many high profile money laundering cases were enabled by super advanced technology, that average guys like me do not understand its existence and use.
November 16, 2024
Pretty good book, nothing groundbreaking to people reading tech news but overall quite interesting.
Very focused on Crypto mixing and business email compromise attacks / Nigerian scams.
If you're interested in how cartels really launder money, "The Infiltrator: My Secret Life Inside the Dirty Banks Behind Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel" by Robert Mazur will also be interesting.
Very focused on Crypto mixing and business email compromise attacks / Nigerian scams.
If you're interested in how cartels really launder money, "The Infiltrator: My Secret Life Inside the Dirty Banks Behind Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel" by Robert Mazur will also be interesting.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews