the.com/money laundering
Turning crime's cash into a legitimate-looking paycheck, one shell company at a time.
means Running illegally obtained money through legitimate-looking transactions or businesses so it comes out looking clean and its criminal source can't be traced.
from The 'laundering' metaphor is widely credited to the fact that dirty money needs to come out 'clean,' and the term gained traction in the 1920s-30s American gangster era, when mobsters allegedly used cash-heavy laundromats and other cash businesses to mix illicit cash with legitimate earnings. The word itself only became common legal and journalistic terminology around the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, when it was used to describe disguised campaign funds — cementing 'laundering' as the standard term for financial cleanup of dirty money ever since.
- term origin
- mob literally bought laundromats to mix cash
- three steps
- placement, layering, integration, like a bad sandwich
- favorite fronts
- restaurants, car washes, art galleries, strip clubs
- global scale
- estimated 2 to 5 percent of world GDP