Cashing up

A business taking large amounts of small change each week (e.g. a convenience store) needs to deposit that money in a bank. If its deposits vary greatly for no obvious reason this can draw suspicion; but if the transactions are regular and roughly the same the suspicion is easily discounted. This is the basis of all money laundering, a track record of depositing clean money before slipping through dirty money.

In the United States, for example, cash transactions and deposits of more than $10,000 must be reported by the cashier (the bank etc) as "significant cash transactions" to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network FinCEN, with any other suspicious financial activity identified as "suspicious activity reports" (SARs).

In other jurisdictions suspicion-based requirements may be placed on financial services employees and firms to report suspicious activity to the authorities.

Bisnes tangkapan

Cara lain adalah dengan memulakan perniagaan yang aliran tunai masuknya tidak boleh dipantau dan mencorongkan perubahan kecil dan membayar cukai ke atasnya. Bagaimanapun semua pekerja bank telah dilatih untuk secara berterusan mencari transaksi-transaksi yang cuba untuk memanipulasikan keperluan pelaporan. To avoid suspicion, shell companies should deal directly with the public, perform some service (not provide physical goods), and have a business that reasonably would accept cash as a matter of course. Dealing directly with the public in cash gives a plausible reason for not having a record of customers.

For example, it is quite reasonable to think that a hairstylist is paid in cash and, even if she knows her customer's names, does not know their bank details. A record of a haircut must ostensibly be accepted as prima facie evidence. Service businesses have the advantage of the anonymity of resources — but the disadvantage that they must deal in cash. A business that sells computers has to account for the computers, whereas the hairstylist does not have to produce the cut hair, but the receipt for the computer, even if inflated, exists — that for the haircut probably does not. It is of course also possible to invent customers, purely for the purpose of accepting money from them.