What is Money Laundering?

When criminals commit crimes, they do it to make money, and since this money can be linked to crime, in this case, they must hide the source of their illegal funds. This is called money laundering. The money comes from crimes such as robbery, arms trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and tax evasion. We often think that money laundering is related to organized crime, but this also applies to people who work for money and do not report income. They will try to hide the source of funds, but it usually requires a three-step process.

First, money must flow into the financial system. Then it will move around, so it is difficult to track. In the end, it returns to the system legally. The three stages of the money laundering process are called placement, stratification, and integration. In some cases, such as B. In the case of tax evasion, the mediation stage may not be necessary because the money is already in the system.

An important law to combat money laundering is the proceeds of crime. The proceeds of crime can be anything: cash, stocks, cars, antiques, art, and anything that may have significant value. This includes fraudulent or bribery products. The legislation covers almost everything that criminal proceeds can do, including covering up or assisting in money laundering.

Then it’s not just people trying to launder money for themselves. This also includes people who engage in money laundering activities to make huge profits. You don’t even have to be directly involved. If you work for a regulated company like a bank, it is a criminal offense not to report suspected money laundering activities now. You will also try to warn the abuser that you or others feel guilty about what you did. All these crimes are punishable by personal fines and/or imprisonment.

Suspicious activities of financial services departments and regulated companies reported by money laundering reporters or designated officials. However, you need to let the right people know this and not discuss this issue. Problems with others. Money laundering mainly occurs in the financial system. One way to detect money laundering is to monitor abnormal activities.

For example, placing multiple small cash deposits in different locations to avoid suspicion of the subject, sometimes referred to as Smurfs or large cash deposits, or anyone who wants to pay or make payments in cash. A high cash business can be used to hide cash by mixing the two. Payments to offshore bank accounts may also be suspicious, especially in countries with looser regulations. The customer paid in cash but requested a refund by cheque.

Customers may not particularly worry about cancellation fees or fines. When money is “tiered” or transferred, it can be transferred to a shadow account. Such bills, but without the usual expenses, such as electricity bills, paying in supermarkets, or withdrawing cash from ATMs. Explain, but they may also indicate that money laundering may be in progress. The more you know about your customers, the company, and the people you work with, the easier it will be to get them.

Therefore, many companies track their customers and look for unusual patterns. In risk areas such as financial services, they have an understanding of your customer processes. Customers need to understand where their money comes from and the normal behavior of that person or company. Terrorists also use many methods used by criminals to conceal the source of their funds and avoid involvement in their criminal activities.

What “red flags” Should look for?

Certain red flags may indicate money laundering or terrorist financing transactions. What are the red flags we are often asked about? Identify suspicious situations? In fact, bad guys keep putting forward new ideas for money laundering. As a result, without an exhaustive list of alerts, we should all stay up-to-date. Money launderers like to remain anonymous. Although they can hide the source of funds, they also like products that are easy to withdraw or transfer or allow payment to third parties. Therefore, here are seven things to consider:

-Please pay attention to situations where it is difficult to determine the ultimate owner of funds, such as Registered company, trust structure, complicated legal structure, and situations where you are dealing with an intermediary but have not met in person.

-Relations and transactions with countries that lack strict AML-CFT control.

-There is no obvious economic reason, please pay attention to complicated or unusually large transactions or enthusiasm for unusual transactions. Put these small amounts of funds into the financial system.

-Please pay attention to customers who have unexplainable assets or customers who conduct abnormal transactions with such customers.

-Look for product types that promote anonymity, including wire transfers and high-value items such as jewelry and precious metals. Currency trading with metals is also a red flag.

-Certain types of products are not suitable for money laundering. money. For example, Kiwi Saver (because funds are frozen) and Risk Insurance (because insurance only pays when certain events occur), other products have higher risks, such as money transfer services.

-Non-profit organizations, including charities, can be at the forefront of money laundering and funding. Terrorism, look for the type of organization you are not familiar with. Of course, the vast majority of customers and transactions do not involve money laundering.

Money Laundering Examples

Once you receive money from an illegal source, it is difficult to spend or deposit it in your bank account without the authorities’ attention. This money can be used as evidence of your crime. This is why you need to clean up this dirty money. Every money-laundering system consists of three steps.

The first is to transfer funds from direct links to crime, then to close or hide currency channels to anger the authorities, and finally to integrate when the funds are available for use again without fear of being captured.

It is easy to set up a Shell company, and many law firms can help you set up a Shell company. It takes a little longer than registering a new email address. Start-ups can turn to historic tax havens such as Switzerland, or turn to anonymous shell companies such as the Cayman Islands or the US states of Delaware and Nevada. After establishing a shell company, use your dirty money to make some false transactions for the goods or services you paid for. Suddenly, the dirty money seemed to be legitimate. It will also help you find someone who works in a bank, regardless of whether you are a suspicious customer.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, money launderers searched for weak places throughout Europe, where surveillance capabilities were poor. Millions of people have been transferred through Cyprus banks. , Malta and Baltic countries such as Estonia and Latvia. If you prefer the stock market, you can try a technique called mirror trading.

In this way, you can buy stocks with money and then sell them for the same price. in the world. The exchanges cancel each other out functionally, but you have successfully converted rubles to pure euros. Another way to launder money is to mix dirty money with clean money. Cash such as restaurants and casinos is particularly attractive to laundromats. A common solution is to buy some casino chips, place some small bets, and then collect the rest as winnings.

Stages of Money Laundering: The money Laundering process

Money laundering process Money laundering is divided into three stages: layering and integration: a police officer injects cash into the financial system. The obscene appearance involves complicated financial transactions and disguised sources of illegal cash. The stage of currency separation starting with illegal currency transactions is the most complicated and usually includes international currency transactions. The purpose of this step is to make it difficult to detect and detect faulty activities. For law enforcement agencies, illegal income is difficult, so there is no way: convert cash into monetary tools. Once it is successfully put into the financial system by a bank or financial institution, the funds received can be converted into currency instruments. Then, the sale of assets purchased with illegal funds can be resold domestically or abroad.

In this case, assets will be more difficult to track and seize. If you want to learn more about cryptocurrencies, let’s look at the three stages of money laundering: the placement stage, the second stage is layering, and the third stage is integration. Now, let us take a closer look at each stage. The stage of depositing funds received due to criminal activities will be converted into monetary instruments such as money orders, traveler’s checks, and even cash deposited in financial institutions or even bank accounts.

This is the first stage of depositing funds into legal financial institutions. System: The funds are transferred or transferred to other accounts or other financial institutions to further separate the funds from the criminal source. The third or last stage is the integration stage in which funds are reintroduced into the system or economy. These funds are used to purchase legal assets or fund other criminal activities related to legal business. Because these assets actually come from legitimate sources now, let’s summarize the money laundering process, which includes the first stage of localization, where you can see that the money is stored in different bank accounts or financial institutions.

Then, the money is distributed through wire transfers, bank deposits, overseas bank accounts, and even through transactions. Next comes the integration phase, in which money is used to purchase elite assets. It can also be financial, commercial, and industrial investment, so this is a typical money laundering process.