What is Money Laundering?

People love a good crime narrative. The spectrum of crime is broad and some people find their own niche to specialize in; sometimes as a spectator and other times as a participant. Money Laundering should be on the forefront of any real criminal's mind since they would need to clean all of their illicit money in order to do anything substantial with it. That is a problem that many real criminals have had to face and some popular fictitious ones as well.

There are several different strategies when it comes to laundering money and there are some shows that do a good job of simplifying those techniques. Breaking Bad, Ozark, and even The Wolf of Wall Street all have scenes that break down how to launder money. Breaking Bad and Ozark used ‘Smurfs’ and ‘Mules’ to launder their money through businesses while The Wolf of Wall Street used ‘Mules’ to transfer large sums of cash to banks in Switzerland. People who study money laundering for a living and actively work to prevent it sing the praises of certain Hollywood shows for their accurate depictions of the crime.

Cleaning dirty money is easier said than done and appears to require the type of mind that pays very close attention to the little details. All it takes is a few too many slip-ups and the IRS or FBI will come knocking at your door which is something no one wants.

What are your thoughts on money laundering and how it is depicted in pop culture? Are you surprised when you hear about real life examples? Let us know in the comments and thank you for watching!

Written by: Nathan Council
Narrated by: Nathan Council
Edited by: Federico Rossi

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
00:12 What is Money Laundering?
03:34 Real Life Examples of Money Laundering
06:31 Money Laundering in Pop Culture
09:41 Outro

[david.walters]

Whoever sees this, im just saying don’t get your mind all caught in the media and distractions from ourselves. all that matters is that your vibrating high and u are at peace with yourself, you just reading this comment I now send positivity and strength to whoever reads this. thank you may all of you be blessed you are loved I promise.

[kelo]

To the FBI agents tracking appeared on my timeline. I didn't search for it.

[luxuryintheworld]

You are fantastic! now I have no more words to describe this beautiful channel 😍😍

[Rjm]

Every thing I know about is from crime shows like breaking bad and the sopranos

[phillyfan-]

The movie office space brought me here

[johnhumphrey]

the problem is that it is not money laundering it is Feit currency laundering.

[auro]

it is core business of rich elites and countries

[arsenal]

Ask me something relating to money Laundering

[geoffreythomas]

If the TV and movie shows glorify money laundering like that I bet the producers wouldn't like to be caught out as a victim of the same crime themselves face with their loyal commitment in having to justify their shows.

[geedishaamboproduction]

billion, likes he says don't break the law, just get rich the American way?

[Truthseeker]

I don't get the grio of money laundering definition. Money raised by not paying tax is money laundering? What about North Korea's gamble proceeds and banked in Macau? That's they call money laundering, too. But it's official and legitimate means for NK to make foreign currency revenue.