Hawala money transfer for dummies
Interpol has a great primer on the hawala alternative remittance system. It's gotten a lot of press lately for its use by al Qaeda but is widely and more or less legitimately used in South Asia, the Middle East and much of Africa, plus wherever there are migrants from those parts of the world. (There's a parallel traditional "chop" system of Chinese origin.)
The piece is especially notable for its etymological note, plus a four-language glossary of hawala terms.
The word hawala comes from the Arabic root h-w-l, which has the basic meanings 'change' and 'transform'... When the word came into Hindi and Urdu
it retained these meanings, but it also gained the additional meanings 'trust' and 'reference' which reflect the manner in which the system operates.
Good job, Interpol! It's hard to imagine a law enforcement agency in the good old monoglot US of A packing as much clearly stated linguistic information into such a concise document.