Laundering money

E

Ed Barton

I've been watching 'Better Call Saul' and reflecting back on Breaking Bad...

How do you launder serious amounts of money?

A relatively small amount of money (say $50-100k?) would be easy-ish to launder.

How do you wash and dry the millions that a lot of criminal organisations must be earning? Mostly cash businesses?

  • A bakery. Almost all cash, or only accept cash. I'd imagine $500k pa at the most - perhaps bakers delight is owned by the bike gangs. lol.
  • A pub/night club. Almost all cash. You might be able to launder a bit more than a bakery. But what? A million, + tip at most?
  • Gambling. Not thinking about going to casino and betting cash and getting a cheque back, but owning the gambling establishment. This could be the best way to launder money as the 'owner' of the betting shop. You'd need to own a few.

What ever way I think about it I come to the conclusion that you would need to include a lot people in your laundering operations. That's a lot of risk.

Even Heisenberg had so much cash he couldn't dry clean it.
 
Definitely not a real estate agency, every single cent is accounted for through a trust account and audited every year.

There is so many clean, legal ways to make money, why even take a risk of doing something illegal?
 
With the casino you would have to take pokies out of the equation they print out an amount earnt/given out. You would be relying on card tables, bars and restaurants. As for your main question I think you would need a large number of bakery :)
 
Xenia IM said:
Definitely not a real estate agency, every single cent is accounted for through a trust account and audited every year.
Click to expand...

So you ask every client who deposits money into the trust account where the money came from? Audits are to prevent agents from stealing money.
 
Ed

There are many ways to hide cash

Many people put their cash in their PPOR by doing renovations and upgrades.
Provided they don't get audited they can then sell their PPOR and their cash becomes legit.

I've also heard rumors of people buying properties in their relatives names and have a written agreement so that 1 day they can get their money back.

Or they can smuggle the money overseas and buy properties there.

At the end of the day, its all too risky business and I have no sympathy for those who cheat and get caught.
 
Pizza shops and laundromats were the common go to places.

Losing money at casinos is seen to be a way - but if it came down to an audit they would be able to easily establish that you still brought x amount in which you can't account for.

Start painting and selling your artwork to anonymous overseas buyers for extortionate amounts.
 
It is called the TAB, casinos etc.

If you are able to prove that you have won or lost big, are frequently attending the bookies etc the cash becomes legit.
 
casinos, trust accounts, tabs etc are all monitored closely and must report to austrac.

Think about the type of people that own night clubs. And think about all of those fruit shop owners who used to overcapitalise on home improvements.

It wouldn't be easy to buy property in a relative's name to hide cash. The money must be paid over somehow.
 
Ed Barton said:
How do you launder serious amounts of money?
Click to expand...

The easiest way is to keep the money at home and use it to pay cash for things where cash transactions are normal. Not a good idea to move that cash into the financial system because there is risk. Laundering becomes an issue if you have an ongoing cash stream. If you're getting $40K in cash every month then you have a problem but irregular amounts are easier to hide.

Mixing funds in a legit established business is better than starting your own but it must deal mostly with cash so you can overstate your income from over invoicing to allow inflow. Pure cash businesses like nightclubs make the inflow even more difficult to trace.

Casinos are the simplest way but the authorities know very well about exchanging cash for chips, play a bit then exchange the chips for cash. If there's huge sums of cash involved the laundering process can be sped up using multiple players on a table, e.g when two partners play at the same roulette table and one player bets on all reds and another on all blacks. As long as the outcome is not zero or double zero, one of the players wins the bet and the amount won from another partner becomes legit winnings. Losses will be hidden while 'winnings' will be converted back with receipts.

Another way is to take the cash (don't declare it on immigration form) and fly to different countries where you change the cash (a few 1000s at a time) and obtain the local currency. When you do this you will be given a receipt which makes the money clean. You then remit this money back to your country of residence and pay income tax on it. You can declare it as consulting work you did for a client in the country where you exchanged it but this is time consuming unless you enjoy traveling.

There are many ways you can clean your money from bitcoin, remittances, carry cash, pre-paid cards, credits exchange, gold trade etc but if you want to do it successfully, you need to keep a low profile and have few flashy habits. Stay low key, pay your taxes and keep licenses up to date to avoid attention. Becoming a non-resident also gives you more options but try and fly under the radar. Delete facebook, hit the gym and lawyer up.

Disclaimer: Money laundering is illegal and I don't endorse it. AUSTRAC are watching you.

Xenia IM said:
There is so many clean, legal ways to make money, why even take a risk of doing something illegal?
Click to expand...

Because the financial rewards are MUCH MUCH greater. An extreme example is Pablo Escobar who enjoyed a ROI of 20,000% and had over 7,000 property investments and hundreds of legit businesses like banks, restaurants, hotels etc. He was spending $2,500 a month just on rubber bands to bundle his cash.
 
Last edited:
BV said:
But then it becomes an income producing activity so it is taxable income.
Better to lend it to the casino and they let you win it back ;)
Click to expand...

The best way to legitimise funds is to pay tax on them.

It's very simple to track attempted washing of funds at casinos.

ATO: "My BV, you've claimed to win $2 million at the casino, however we have evidence to show you walked into said casino with $2.5 million to start with. Care to explain how you came into said funds?"

BV: "Can I get the top bunk in prison?"
 
Maybe buy expensive jewellery-gold etc and travel overseas wearing it. Convert same to cash and bank in overseas bank say in Lichtenstein or some jurisdiction that won't hand over your info to the ATO.

Convert to foreign currency and do the same ?

Buy assets in a corporate name where your involvement is not disclosed on record (Bahamas holding corp)

Solicitor's trust account as a retainer- but you never instruct them so minimal fees incurred.
 
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