From Smurfs to Mules: 21st Century Money Laundering
Remember those lovable blue cartoon characters, the Smurfs? First created and introduced as a comic strip series of characters by the Belgian artist Peyo (pen name of Pierre Culliford) in 1958, the Smurfs were brought to Belgian television in the early 1970s and then introduced to countries outside Belgium through the full-length feature the Magic Flute soon afterward.
Interestingly, the word “Smurf” is the original Dutch translation of the French “Schtroumpf” which, according to Peyo, is a word invented during a meal with fellow cartoonist André Franquin, when he could not remember the word “salt.”
