Currency-exchange office was suspiciously too good at washing dirty money

The owners of a currency-exchange office have been accused of money laundering. Gdansk-based Conti is widely known in the underworld, whose "members" use it as a normal bank. Gangsters were exchanging money at Conti, which was later sold by the owners to Bank Gdanski. A 1995 police investigation of Conti revealed it had a lot of unaccounted-for foreign currency and also two accounting systems. Conti was buying large amounts of dollars and deutsche marks everyday. Turnover and the number of transactions were far greater than at any other kantor in the region. Prior to Sept. 14, 1995, the company had sold $62 million and D.M. 55 million to Bank Gdanski. However, Conti's tax records showed that only zl. 14 million in tax was owed. (Rzeczpospolita A1, A4) M.M.