The technique catalog
Each entry follows the same arc: what it is, how it works, the red flags, and how it gets caught. Every indicator from every entry is also collected in the red flags index.
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Art, antiques and luxury goods
Turning illicit funds into paintings, antiques, watches, or cars that are portable, hard to price, and easy to resell, so the money comes back as a sale.
LayeringIntegration Assets Classic -
Black Market Peso Exchange
A peso broker buys a cartel's US drug dollars at a discount and uses them to pay US exporters for Latin American importers, who repay the broker in pesos at home.
Layering Trade Classic -
Bulk cash smuggling
Physically carrying, shipping, or driving criminal cash across a border so it can be deposited or spent where it draws less attention and leaves no record in transit.
Placement Cash Classic -
Buying legitimate businesses
Using illicit funds to buy or invest in real companies, so criminal wealth becomes an ordinary business portfolio that earns income with a paper trail.
Integration Assets Classic -
Cash-intensive front businesses
A real-looking business that handles lots of cash books criminal money as sales, banks it, and pays tax on it, buying the money a legitimate history.
PlacementIntegration Cash Classic -
Casinos and gambling
Dirty cash buys chips; minimal play and a cash-out turn it into documented gambling proceeds, a source of funds banks rarely question.
PlacementLayering Gambling Classic -
Chain hopping and cross-chain bridges
Swapping illicit crypto across blockchains through bridges and no-KYC swap services so that no single chain's analytics tell the whole story.
Layering Crypto Modern -
Correspondent banking and wire layering
Small or weakly supervised banks reach the dollar system through accounts at big correspondent banks, and rapid wires through many accounts and countries bury the origin of the money.
Layering Banking Classic -
Crypto ATMs and peer-to-peer trades
Turning cash into cryptocurrency at a kiosk or with a peer-to-peer trader, so that dirty cash or scam payments land in a wallet the criminal controls.
PlacementLayering Crypto Modern -
Cuckoo smurfing
Cuckoo smurfing hijacks a legitimate international transfer: criminal cash is deposited into an unwitting recipient's account while the clean money stays offshore.
PlacementLayering Banking Modern -
Currency exchanges and MSBs
Using currency exchange houses, remitters, and other money services businesses to convert and send cash abroad, either through complicit operators or through firms whose controls are too weak to notice.
PlacementLayering Banking Classic -
Flying money: Chinese underground banks
Chinese underground banks match cartel cash in the US with Chinese clients who want dollars outside China's capital controls: two mirrored payments, and no money crosses a border.
Layering Informal value transfer Classic -
Funnel accounts and money mules
Recruited or deceived account holders receive and forward criminal money, so the bank's customer checks land on a real person who isn't the criminal.
PlacementLayering Banking Modern -
Gaming currencies and skins
Buying in-game currency, items or gambling balances with stolen or illicit funds, then trading them on for clean-looking cash or crypto.
PlacementLayering Digital Modern -
Gold and precious metals
Converting cash or dirty proceeds into gold, or booking them as gold sales, so the value can be melted, shipped, and sold again with the history gone.
PlacementIntegration Assets Classic -
Hawala and informal value transfer
Moving value across borders through trusted brokers who pay out locally and settle with each other later: no money actually crosses, and no transaction record exists.
Layering Informal value transfer Classic -
Insurance products
Cash-value life policies and annuities can turn unexplained money into an insurer's cheque, which looks like an ordinary maturity, loan, or surrender payout.
LayeringIntegration Banking Classic -
Loan-back schemes
A loan-back scheme sends a person's own money offshore and returns it as a documented loan from a lender they secretly control, so the funds arrive with a paper explanation.
LayeringIntegration Banking Classic -
Mirror trading
Two matched securities trades in different currencies and offices, placed by connected parties, work as a hidden currency swap that moves money out of a country with no transfer to flag.
Layering Securities Modern -
Mixers, tumblers, and CoinJoin
Services that pool many users' coins and pay out equivalent amounts from the pool, breaking the on-chain link between where crypto came from and where it went.
Layering Crypto Modern -
NFT wash trading
Buying and selling an NFT between wallets you control to fake a price, or to give illicit crypto the paper trail of an ordinary sale.
LayeringIntegration Crypto Modern -
Peel chains
Splitting a large crypto balance into a long series of transactions, each sending a small amount onward and the rest to a new address, so the trail is slow and tedious to follow.
Layering Crypto Modern -
Prepaid cards and gift cards
Turning cash or stolen funds into prepaid and gift cards that are easy to carry, hand over, and resell, so the value moves without a bank account or a wire.
PlacementLayering Digital Modern -
Privacy coins
Cryptocurrencies with built-in features that hide who sent, who received, or how much, so a public blockchain no longer shows the whole story.
Layering Crypto Modern -
Professional enablers
Lawyers, accountants, company formation agents, and real estate professionals whose ordinary services, knowingly or not, give illicit money a respectable paper trail.
PlacementLayeringIntegration Banking Classic -
Real estate
Parking illicit funds in property through shell companies, trusts, and all-cash purchases, then drawing the money back out as clean-looking rent or resale proceeds.
Integration Assets Classic -
Round-tripping and fake foreign investment
Money leaves a country, passes through an offshore company, and returns as foreign investment or a foreign loan, gaining a clean-looking origin and often better legal or tax treatment.
LayeringIntegration Banking Classic -
Sanctions evasion
Hiding who really owns or benefits from assets and payments so sanctions do not bite, using many of the same tools as money laundering but often with lawfully earned money.
LayeringIntegration Banking Modern -
Securities and brokerage
Brokerage accounts, offshore nominee accounts, and thinly traded microcap stocks can move and disguise value, because markets shift money instantly and legitimately.
LayeringIntegration Securities Classic -
Shell companies and nominees
Companies with no real operations hold accounts and assets while nominee directors and stacked ownership across jurisdictions hide the true beneficial owner.
Layering Banking Classic -
Stablecoins and OTC brokers
Moving illicit value through dollar-pegged stablecoins (above all USDT on Tron) and converting it to cash through over-the-counter brokers and guarantee marketplaces with little or no KYC.
PlacementLayering Crypto Modern -
Structuring (smurfing)
Splitting cash into deposits just below the reporting threshold so no single transaction triggers a currency report.
Placement Cash Classic -
Trade based money laundering (TBML)
Moving value across borders through trade paperwork: over- or under-invoicing goods, double-invoicing shipments, or invoicing shipments that never happened.
Layering Trade Classic -
Transaction laundering
Running card payments for a hidden business through another merchant's legitimate processing account so the payment system sees only the front.
Layering Digital Modern -
Unlicensed exchanges and nested services
Crypto exchanges that skip licensing and identity checks, and small services hidden inside big exchanges, that let criminals convert coins to cash without questions.
LayeringIntegration Crypto Modern