NOTORIOUS black-market currency trader Nelma Kodama is proud of her wealth. She doesn’t care that it was earned illegally because she likens the running of her dirty money empire to “conducting an orchestra”. The 47-year-old became a dollar dealer - someone who trades substantial amounts of currencies underground with minimal trace - in her early Twenties.
“To be a money dealer is to become the law,” she says. “You are following your own set of rules, not doing things by the central bank’s rules. “It’s a code of honour, of character, of your worth.
” A far cry from the comparatively ordinary dentistry career she had once trained in. Dollar dealers often provide money laundering services too, which involves disguising the origins of illegally obtained money to make it appear legitimate. Nelma was initially just answering the phones at a seedy currency exchange office named Santur before being given the opportunity to sit in on negotiations.
Soon enough, she progressed to owning Santur (it re-branded as Hawaii Currency Exchange and Tourism) when the original owner washed his hands with the dodgy dealings. Nelma, from São Paulo, Brazil , was left in charge of selling currency to businessmen and fellow criminals, as well as Brazilian banks. Even though it was illegal, it was morally acceptable for bankers to work alongside dollar dealers in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties.
Nelma acted as a middleman for people who needed money and needed it quickly. She .
