Money Laundering
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Professor William Byrnes, a legal expert who writes on such issues as the fight against international money laundering schemes, is a main author of “Money Laundering, Asset Forfeiture & Recovery, and Compliance – A Global Guide.” In addition to the above-mentioned publication, William Byrnes has written or contributed to nearly two dozen book chapters, 30 books, and hundreds of articles related to finance and financial crimes.
Some criminal enterprises produce vast sums of money, which gives rise to a problem in that spending such ill-gotten gains often attracts attention of police or tax authorities curious to know where the money came from. To avoid such attention and to make gains seem legitimate, criminal organizations turn to illegal money laundering activities.
Money laundering usually occurs in three basic stages. The first, called “placement,” involves the introduction of criminal funds into the financial system. During “layering,” the second step, criminals obscure the ownership and origins of their money, making it seem legitimately sourced. Finally, the laundered money is then recycled into the law-biding economy.
In the modern international economy, money laundering can take on many forms, some of which are quite subtle. For instance, criminals launder billions of dollars per year in ill-gotten wealth through unwitting financial institutions, which offer increasingly complex financial products that criminals can take advantage of without the active collusion of such institutions.
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