Money laundering is an illegal activity that makes large amounts of money generated by criminal activity, such as drug trafficking or terrorist funding, appear to have come from a legitimate...

Money laundering involves disguising financial assets so they can be used without detection of the illegal activity that produced them. Through money laundering, the criminal transforms the monetary proceeds derived from criminal activity into funds with an apparently legal source.

Money laundering generally refers to financial transactions in which criminals, including terrorist organizations, attempt to disguise the proceeds, sources or nature of their illicit activities. Money laundering facilitates a broad range of serious underlying criminal offenses and ultimately threatens the integrity of the financial system.

money laundering, the process by which criminals attempt to conceal the illicit origin and ownership of the proceeds of their unlawful activities. By means of money laundering, criminals attempt to transform the proceeds from their crimes into funds of an apparently legal origin.

Money laundering is a process that criminals use in an attempt to hide the illegal source of their income. By passing money through complex transfers and transactions, or through a series of businesses, the money is “cleaned” of its illegitimate origin and made to appear as legitimate business profits.

Money laundering allows criminals to hide and accumulate wealth, avoid prosecution, evade taxes, increase profits through reinvestment, and fund further criminal activity.