What is Money Laundering? Money laundering is when funds from criminal activity are converted into “clean money” and cannot be traced back to the criminal activity. The goal is to conceal the criminal activity and the criminals involved. One of the main reasons people commit criminal acts is to make money off of it. Money laundering allows criminals to enjoy these illegal proceeds without law enforcement noticing.
Money laundering can be used in drug trafficking, terrorism financing, or tax evasion. Obviously selling drugs is illegal. The drug industry is known to turn out a pretty hefty profit. Drug traffickers will launder money to hide their illegal drug sales. The United States is always looking at ways to prevent terrorism.
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The third step is integration, which is when the funds reenter the legitimate economy. Often times the illegal money is intertwined with legitimate money (Cliff and Desilets 3).
Why is Money-Laundering a Threat? Money laundering can be detrimental to a country’s economy. It can be difficult for legitimate activities to compete, and it can cause unpredictable changes in money demand (“Consequences of Money Laundering”). It hurts businesses due to people being able to buy products for cheaper from people with laundered money in an effort to get clean money. Also these businesses have to deal with tax increases to make up for the loss of money the government is not receiving due to money laundering. A lot of laundered money filters through financial institutions. This can cause financial institutions to risk their reputation. Whether they are an accomplice or had no knowledge of the dirty money, the bad name recognition can cause investors and customers to lose faith in the organization (“Consequences of Money Laundering”). Money laundering reduces tax revenue due to difficulties in collecting revenue from an underground economy. Laundered money generally is used to expand existing criminal activities or create new ones, thus causing an even bigger economic consequence (“Consequences of Money Laundering”).
Money-Laundering Statistics The United
This money should be allocated for the development of a country, education and also employment. People who are under influence of drugs can act aggressively which means they can commit violence without consciousness and intentions. They are also willing to do anything such as rob, steal or at a certain point kill innocent people as they want money to buy drugs. As a result, the rate of crime will increase, the environment is not safe enough for the community to live in and it can disrupt people’s routine lives. Moreover, it can give negative perceptions to the investors from other countries and they are not willing to invest or make a deal with a country that has high social problems. The consequence is, it can retard the economy growth of a
launder money and make illegally profits seem legit and how it is. In this paper we will explain
Money Laundering is the act of placing illegally acquired money in a legitimate business cash flow. This is done in order to be able to use that currency without law enforcement and the IRS questioning cash flow pertaining to a certain individual or corporation in question. This also considered a form of
Organized crime can be narrowed down to five unique areas of criminal activity. The first being racketeering, an umbrella term, meant to describe when any group or groups conduct one or more of the other criminal activities. One of the most successful ways the federal government has been able to hinder the actions of hardcore criminals is through the formation of the RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations). The second area of major criminal activity is vice, or vice operations. This has to do with victim-less crimes such as drugs, gambling, and prostitution. Again, these crimes are highly problematic because it is the public that decides whether or not they prosper. It’s all too easy to build a case against someone breaking a law by importing huge quantities of controlled substances across a border, but it becomes much more difficult to stem the sale or need for such drugs once they have reached their intended destinations.
Drug trafficking is a major problem in the United States. When this trade reaches third world countries, it usually spreads incredibly fast and law enforcement is more easily corrupted. It is the illegal trade involving cultivation, manufacture, distribution, and the sale of substances which are illegal under the law. The drug trade is estimated to bring in more than $100 billion every year from the U.S. The number of global deaths each year due to illegal drugs is over 200,000.
Drug crimes happen to violate state or federal drug laws from possession, manufacture, use, or distribution. Trafficking does impede national currency of transactions seeing as, “both the federal government and many states criminalize drug trafficking and broadly define it as the trade or dealing in illegal substances” (Tran, 2016, para. 2). Its seriousness will confront some measurement by a range of economic damage, loss to victims, and so on. Ultimately, some elements bring an allowance of illegal narcotics or controlled industrial compounds to circulate within the U.S. government.
Organized crime is often committed by highly controlled criminal groups that participate in illegal activities for financial benefits. Indeed, organized crimes terrorize multiple facets of the American nation, which include the US’ economy as well as national security. The FBI assigns the costs of organized crime globally at one trillion dollars per year.
In order to successfully launder money three processes are needed: placement, layering, and integration. In the first state, placement, the illegal proceeding are disengaged from direct association with the crime or criminal. In the second stage, layering, the money is used in some legal financial transaction in order to “camouflage” the cash. In the third stage, integration, the apparently legal money is available to the money launder (Kelly, Maghan and Joseph). For better understanding, the fig 1 gives a real life example on how money laundering is done.
Madinger (2011) Argued that Civil asset forfeiture is the driving force behind money-laundering today is forfeiture.
activities including money laundering and fraud of various types. In fact, the FBI has indicated
When deemed appropriate, engaging in intricate financial manipulations accordingly, the perpetrators of organized crime may include corrupt business executives members of the professions, public offices, or
On one hand, it is obviously unethical to break the law and bribe but more importantly from a utilitarian perspective, this action will hurt the greater good or “stakeholders” who are the whole society. Bribing corrupt authorities will only perpetuate the corruption in those countries and once a company or individual has gone down that road it is very difficult to return. Bribery also encourages unfair competition that hurts the economy which eventually affects the whole
There are also economic effects that result from government corruption. These economic effects coincided with bribery. People who work for companies that are at risk of being shut down for health or other reasons will pay any amount to make their problems go away. In Mexico, food store owners such as Jose Luis Garcia will pay anywhere from $50-$100 to have inspectors turn the other way (Archibold). This happens on a small scale such as
They also increase the drug trafficking and pay off corrupt officials by extortion or intimidation which helps them continue their operations. Although the FBI is unsure of how much impact there is, they estimate it to be around $1 trillion a year, globally.
This simple concept the government does not seem to understand. Each time an agency makes a drug bust, it makes the monster bigger, the drug more profitable. Revenues for drug trafficking in Miami are greater than those from tourism exports, health care, and all other legitimate businesses combined.