MONEY LAUNDERING 101

BY MADHAVA NURMAWAN

What is money laundering? At its core, it consists of three ‘phases’, placement, layering, and extraction. This is a real-world crime and I advise people not to launder money, but here’s how to do it anyway.

Placement is the art of depositing cash into somewhat legitimate businesses. We obviously have the most common example, ‘the gold shop’. Funny enough, quite recently a gold shop owner in Bangkok was arrested after allegedly being caught money laundering and having ties with gangs Now how would we turn, say drugs for example, into a gold shop? We would have to sell those drugs for gold, and then sell the gold. See how we turned a shady deal into a legitimate business? This is the face of money laundering.

But money laundering isn’t just selling demerit goods for other sorts of goods, placement has many more different forms A huge epidemic in Australia has been the ‘pokies’, gambling is now seen as somewhat trendy Now how would I complete placement using a lottery machine? Well, it’s even easier than the old method of opening your own business. You just put your dirty money in, play just a bit to avoid suspicion, withdraw all that money and play it off as ‘winnings’. The worst part about this is that money laundering has been upholding gambling so much that even investigators hired by the company could find themselves on the wrong end of a lawsuit if they dig too close to the dirty roots of money laundering.

A good example of this is whistle-blower Troy Stolz, who in 2018 informed ABC news of the statistics that his former employer ClubsNSW made a large quantity of their revenue through money laundering. ClubsNSW tried to keep him quiet but now across the past 4 years the lawsuit is still ongoing, he is still pleading his case and even got diagnosed with stage 4 cancer along the way. top tip I would advise to any fellow money launderers that haven’t made it big time yet is to use a combination of these two methods: False invoicing, this is when you put through fake invoices to your account that actually come from yourself. Another good one is smurfing, this is when you put small amounts of money just under the AML threshold. The AML Threshold is the minimum amount that can be deposited for which banks will have to report to the government, usually around 10000 USD. So if you are good at setting up accounts, I would recommend these two methods as they work well hand in hand

Now it’s time to rinse and repeat If you are inconsistent with your placement then this raises suspicions highly, this is layering So what is an example of layering? Well, you can’t say you opened a gold shop and input $15000 out of nowhere and have no laid-out schedule.

This goes for all the methods that I have mentioned. It is important to have a schedule. For instance, if I wanted to sell myself as a routine gambler, then I would try to deposit every week or so

Now extraction, this is usually for if others also rely on the money laundering I do So, for example, let’s say a group of people and I want to launder money and we’ve done the first 2 steps successfully, how would I distribute this money?

Fake employees, I could ‘hire’ the people I sell with and distribute the money that they made back to them. Loans, I could give out ‘loans’ to these people too, and have them never to be repaid Another good method is dividends, these people can act as shareholders and I can pay them back what they had made for me

In conclusion, money laundering is an art Don’t let people stop you from how you can money launder because it’s an art that takes many forms. I believe anybody could money launder and each have the skills to perform these methods. Make sure to try these methods out the next time you get the opportunity. pleading his case and even got diagnosed with stage 4 cancer along the way top tip I would advise to any fellow money launderers that haven’t made it big time yet is to use a combination of these two methods: False invoicing, this is when you put through fake invoices to your account that actually come from yourself. Another good one is smurfing, this is when you put small amounts of money just under the AML threshold. The AML Threshold is the minimum amount that can be deposited for which banks will have to report to the government, usually around 10000 USD. So if you are good at setting up accounts, I would recommend these two methods as they work well hand in hand.

Now it’s time to rinse and repeat If you are inconsistent with your placement then this raises suspicions highly, this is layering. So what is an example of layering? Well, you can’t say you opened a gold shop and input $15000 out of nowhere and have no laid-out schedule. This goes for all the methods that I have mentioned. It is important to have a schedule. For instance, if I wanted to sell myself as a routine gambler, then I would try to deposit every week or so.

Now extraction, this is usually for if others also rely on the money laundering I do So, for example, let’s say a group of people and I want to launder money and we’ve done the first 2 steps successfully, how would I distribute this money?

Fake employees, I could ‘hire’ the people I sell with and distribute the money that they made back to them. Loans, I could give out ‘loans’ to these people too, and have them never to be repaid. Another good method is dividends, these people can act as shareholders and I can pay them back what they had made for me

In conclusion, money laundering is an art Don’t let people stop you from how you can money launder because it’s an art that takes many forms. I believe anybody could money launder and each have the skills to perform these methods. Make sure to try these methods out the next time you get the opportunity.

Bibliography

Agwu, E. (2022, August 4). What are the types of money laundering? https://youverify co/ Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://youverify co/blog/whatare-the-types-of-money-laundering https://www.bangkokpost.com. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/21226 35/gold-shop-owner-accused-of-laundering-drugmoney

Chongcharoen, P (2021, May 27) Gold shop owner accused of laundering drug money.

McGowan, M (2022, October 26) Billions in 'dirty' money going into NSW Pokies should be addressed by Cashless Gaming Card, crime commission says The Guardian Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://www theguardian com/australianews/2022/oct/26/billions-in-dirty-money-going-intonsw-pokies-should-be-addressed-by-cashless-gamingcard-commission-says

Mitchell, G. (2022, December 9). Whistleblower Troy Stolz denies declaring 'act of war' against Clubsnsw. The Sydney Morning Herald Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://www smh com au/national/nsw/whistleblowertroy-stolz-denies-declaring-act-of-war-againstclubsnsw-20221209-p5c551 html fbclid=IwAR2N8qhgO0oeQVcaQEWjlbhIaENKiwJx VZmf5WKXRWamOwtO

Stolz, T. (2022, October 3). Clubs lobby group now trying to send me to jail., organized by Troy Stolz. gofundme.com. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://www.gofundme.com/f/clubs-lobby-group-nowtrying-to-send-me-to-jail?