Youre likely familiar with money laundering as a concept from your favorite TV show or the news.
But it turns out its not an activity restricted to gangs or white collar criminals.
Its a lot more common than that.
Anyone, in theory, can launder money, and plenty do.
(ThisYoutube compilationdoes a good job breaking it down.)
Youre taking dirty money and cleaning it.
Layering: The next stage involves moving the money around to obscure its original source.
This usually happens multiple times and across diverse products, thus why its called layering.
Integration: At this stage, the launderer gets the money back from a legitimate source.
In addition, a person must engage in those activities with the intent to disguise the moneys origins.
To get a better understanding of exactly how it works, lets look at some case studies.
In fact, anonymous buyers will often offer over the asking price to make the transaction more seamless.
But Manafort didnt stop at real estate.
Still, Cardamone says more anonymous LLCs are incorporated in the U.S. each year than in any other country.
Once youre the anonymous owner of a company, your company can open bank accounts all over the world.
Terrorismmade possible in part by money launderingthreatens our national security.
And these criminals use largely the same mechanisms as the worlds wealthiest to clean their money.
Theres this legal system of anonymous shell companies that anyone can do anything with, says Cardamone.
They use the legal system to continue their illegal activity.
It goes beyond shell companieslegitimate businesses can be used as well.
All it takes is some creative accounting and voila, the books are cooked.
The bank foreclosed on the property in August 2013.
A not particularly successful example, but an example nonetheless.
Anybody could do it, says Cardamone.
You dont have to be some kind of brilliant legal mind to do this.
Just slightly more brilliant than Paul Manafort and Erika Rae Brown.
