Where does money laundering happen the most?
JURISDICTION | OVERALL SCORE |
---|---|
Finland | 2.88 |
Andorra | 2.89 |
Sweden | 3.12 |
Iceland | 3.31 |
What Are Common Ways to Launder Money? The traditional forms of laundering money, including smurfing, using mules, and opening shell corporations. Other methods include buying and selling commodities, investing in various assets like real estate, gambling, and counterfeiting.
Money laundering is the process of making illegally-gained proceeds (i.e. "dirty money") appear legal (i.e. "clean"). Typically, it involves three steps: placement, layering and integration.
Reselling assets
Cash can be made to look legitimate through reselling. Criminals may purchase big-ticket items with cash, and then quickly resell those items to have money they are able to actually use in their bank account. Real estate, luxury cars, and other such items are popular placements for money laundering.
This is typically done through cash businesses such as tanning salons, car washes, casinos, and strip clubs, as they have little or no variable costs. Historically, this was done through laundrettes, hence the term 'money laundering'.
Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions with varying definitions.
Money can be laundered through online auctions and sales, gambling websites, and even virtual gaming sites. Ill-gotten money is converted into the currency that is used on these sites, then transferred back into real, usable, and untraceable clean money.
Cash businesses like laundromats, vending machines, restaurants, lawn services, car washes, and street vendors are often used to launder money.
It is during the placement stage that money launderers are the most vulnerable to being caught. This is due to the fact that placing large amounts of money (cash) into the legitimate financial system may raise suspicions of officials.
- Sani Abacha. Sani Abacha was a military dictator who ruled Nigeria from 1993 to 1998. ...
- The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) ...
- Benex. ...
- Franklin Jurado. ...
- Nauru. ...
- Al Capone. ...
- Meyer Lansky. ...
- Ferdinand Marcos.
Who is the biggest money laundering?
- Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) Scandal. The BCCI scandal began operations in 1972 and expanded outside the UK a few years later. ...
- HSBC Case. ...
- Wachovia Bank. ...
- The Benex Scandal.
Out of the 76,538 cases reported to the US Sentencing Commission, only 990 cases were involved in money laundering.

Warning signs include repeated transactions in amounts just under $10,000 or by different people on the same day in one account, internal transfers between accounts followed by large outlays, and false social security numbers.