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Hawala's modernization and continued migration online have driven the already-considerable risks of financial crime posed by the centuries-old, informal value-transfer system even higher, German authorities will soon warn in a non-public report on underground banking. An under-the-table, ledger-based arrangement in which a store owner or other operator transfers the value of a client's funds from point A to B without wiring, remitting or physically moving them, hawala—or, better said, the lack of vetting and paper trails that often characterize hawala—appeals to parties determined to keep their finances off the radar. Dozens of suspicious transaction reports reviewed during a recently concluded,...