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Money laundering is the process of transforming the proceeds of crime into ostensibly legitimate money or other assets. However, in a number of legal and regulatory systems, the term money laundering has become conflated with other forms of financial crime, and sometimes used more generally to include misuse of the financial system (involving things such as securities, digital currencies, credit cards, and traditional currency), including terrorism financing and evasion of international sanctions. Most anti-money laundering laws openly conflate money laundering (which is concerned with ''source'' of funds) with terrorism financing (which is concerned with ''destination'' of funds) when regulating the financial system.〔See for example the Anti-Money Laundering & Counter Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Australia), the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (New Zealand), and the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (Financial Institutions) Ordinance (Cap 615) (Hong Kong. See also (for example) guidance on (IMF ) and (FATF ) websites similarly conflating the concepts.〕 According to the United States Treasury Department: Money obtained from certain crimes, such as extortion, insider trading, drug trafficking and illegal gambling is "dirty". It needs to be cleaned to appear to have been derived from legal activities so that banks and other financial institutions will deal with it without suspicion. Money can be laundered by many methods, which vary in complexity and sophistication. Different countries may or may not treat payments in breach of international sanctions as money laundering. Some jurisdictions differentiate these for definition purposes, and others do not. Some jurisdictions define money laundering as obfuscating sources of money, either intentionally or by merely using financial systems or services that do not identify or track sources or destinations. Other jurisdictions define money laundering to include money from activity that ''would have been'' a crime in that jurisdiction, even if it were legal where the actual conduct occurred. This broad brush of applying the term "money laundering" to merely incidental, extraterritorial, or simply privacy-seeking behaviors has led some to label it "financial thoughtcrime". Many regulatory and governmental authorities issue estimates each year for the amount of money laundered, either worldwide or within their national economy. In 1996, the International Monetary Fund estimated that two to five percent of the worldwide global economy involved laundered money. The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), an intergovernmental body set up to combat money laundering, stated, "Overall, it is absolutely impossible to produce a reliable estimate of the amount of money laundered and therefore the FATF does not publish any figures in this regard."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Money Laundering FAQ )〕 Academic commentators have likewise been unable to estimate the volume of money with any degree of assurance.〔 Various estimates of the scale of global money laundering are sometimes repeated often enough to make some people regard them as factual—but no researcher has overcome the inherent difficulty of measuring an actively concealed practice. Regardless of the difficulty in measurement, the amount of money laundered each year is in the billions (US dollars) and poses a significant policy concern for governments.〔 As a result, governments and international bodies have undertaken efforts to deter, prevent, and apprehend money launderers. Financial institutions have likewise undertaken efforts to prevent and detect transactions involving dirty money, both as a result of government requirements and to avoid the reputational risk involved. Issues relating to money laundering have existed as long as there have been large scale criminal enterprises. Modern anti-money laundering laws have developed along with the modern War on Drugs.〔For example, under UK law the first offences created for money laundering both related to the proceeds from the sale of illegal narcotics under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and then later under the Drug Trafficking Act 1994.〕 In more recent times anti-money laundering legislation is seen as adjunct to the financial crime of terrorist financing in that both crimes usually involve the transmission of funds through the financial system (although money laundering relates to where the money has come ''from'', and terrorist financing relating to where the money is going ''to''). ==Method== Money laundering is commonly defined as happening in three steps: the first step involves introducing cash into the financial system by some means ("placement"); the second involves carrying out complex financial transactions to camouflage the illegal source ("layering"); and the final step entails acquiring wealth generated from the transactions of the illicit funds ("integration"). Some of these steps may be omitted, depending on the circumstances. For example, non-cash proceeds that are already in the financial system would have no need for placement. Money laundering can take several forms, although most methods can be categorized into one of a few types. These include "bank methods, smurfing (known as structuring ), currency exchanges, and double-invoicing".〔Lawrence M. Salinger, ''Encyclopedia of white-collar & corporate crime: A – I, Volume 1'', page 78, ISBN 0-7619-3004-3, 2005.〕 * Structuring: Often known as ''smurfing'', this is a method of placement whereby cash is broken into smaller deposits of money, used to defeat suspicion of money laundering and to avoid anti-money laundering reporting requirements. A sub-component of this is to use smaller amounts of cash to purchase bearer instruments, such as money orders, and then ultimately deposit those, again in small amounts. * Bulk cash smuggling: This involves physically smuggling cash to another jurisdiction and depositing it in a financial institution, such as an offshore bank, with greater bank secrecy or less rigorous money laundering enforcement. * Cash-intensive businesses: In this method, a business typically expected to receive a large proportion of its revenue as cash uses its accounts to deposit criminally derived cash. Such enterprises often operate openly and in doing so generate cash revenue from incidental legitimate business in addition to the illicit cash - in such cases the business will usually claim all cash received as legitimate earnings. Service businesses are best suited to this method, as such businesses have little or no variable costs and/or a large ratio between revenue and variable costs, which makes it difficult to detect discrepancies between revenues and costs. Examples are parking buildings, strip clubs, tanning beds, car washes and casinos. * Trade-based laundering: This involves under or overvaluing invoices to disguise the movement of money. * Shell companies and trusts: Trusts and shell companies disguise the true owner of money. Trusts and corporate vehicles, depending on the jurisdiction, need not disclose their true, beneficial, owner. Sometimes referred to by the slang term ''rathole'' though that term usually refers to a person acting as the fictitious owner rather a business entity.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Global Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Threat Assessment )〕 * Round-tripping: Here, money is deposited in a controlled foreign corporation offshore, preferably in a tax haven where minimal records are kept, and then shipped back as a foreign direct investment, exempt from taxation. A variant on this is to transfer money to a law firm or similar organization as funds on account of fees, then to cancel the retainer and, when the money is remitted, represent the sums received from the lawyers as a legacy under a will or proceeds of litigation. * Bank capture: In this case, money launderers or criminals buy a controlling interest in a bank, preferably in a jurisdiction with weak money laundering controls, and then move money through the bank without scrutiny. * Casinos: In this method, an individual walks into a casino and buys chips with illicit cash. The individual will then play for a relatively short time. When the person cashes in the chips, they will expect to take payment in a check, or at least get a receipt so they can claim the proceeds as gambling winnings.〔 * Other gambling: Money is spent on gambling, preferably on higher odds. One way to minimize risk with this method is to bet on every possible outcome of some event where there are many possible outcomes and no outcome(s) have short odds - the bettor will lose only the vigorish and will have (a) "winning" bet(s) that can be shown as the source of money should this be requested. The "losing" bets will remain hidden. * Real estate: Someone purchases real estate with illegal proceeds and then sells the property. To outsiders, the proceeds from the sale look like legitimate income. Alternatively, the price of the property is manipulated: the seller agrees to a contract that underrepresents the value of the property, and receives criminal proceeds to make up the difference.〔 * Black salaries: A company may have unregistered employees without a written contract and pay them cash salaries. Dirty money might be used to pay them. * Tax amnesties: For example, those that legalize unreported assets in tax havens and cash〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100011790/tax-amnesties-turn-hmrc-into-biggest-money-laundering-operation-in-history )〕 * Fictitious loans * A goal of money laundering is to be able to use the dirty money for private consumption. If unable to use it openly, the traditional way to keep the dirty money near is hiding it as cash at home or other places. A more modern method is a credit card connected to a tax haven bank. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Money laundering」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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