Does the activity that you are doing intentionally or unintentionally falls under the Money Laundering category? What it actually is? All these questions may keep striking your mind from time to time. So, let us have a brief overview on this overwhelming topic which has gained pace equally in developed and developing countries.
As the name speaks of itself, laundering grammatically means the act of washing, starching or ironing. It is often used in terms of clothes but why is it used with word money? The answer lies in the whole activity. It can be said that money laundering is what money laundering does. It is its wider definition.
Actually, it can be explained under following major categories:
- Income from illegal sources such as gambling, lottery wining, drug trafficking, human trafficking and bribery.
- Other Organized corporate crimes. For example- a) rotating money from one company to another without any goods or service in return b) cybercrime – earning through data leakage, malware attacks c) funds embezzlement d) taking money through legal sources but in different bank accounts to avoid taxes.
- Terrorism Financing.
- Hiding sources of income by dealing in cash. Demonetization is one of the way to counter this. We all remember how high amount Rs. 2,000/- notes kept at homes (which were previously unaccounted) got submitted in banks.
- Purchasing financial assets by proceeds of crime to hide their source.
- Any source of income which seems to be legitimate but is actually not.
By now, you must have got why “money” word is used with “laundering”. It means trying to wash away either the source of earning or the amount of earning.
Well described
Thankyou sir