What Excatly is Money Laundering?

With the news today and the charges against Sterling, I thought it might be a good time to look at what exactly Money Laundering constitutes. Investopedia defines it this way: The process of creating the appearance that large amounts of money obtained from serious crimes, such as drug trafficking or terrorist activity, originated from a legitimate source. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/moneylaundering.asp#ixzz3ch87shGU

Given the definition of Money Laundering, I suspect there is more to the charges against Sterling than we have been allowed to know so far. It would appear that they have been using the dinar sales to cover income from another more nefarious source. Drugs, smuggling, terrorism, something else? I imagine that eventually we'll find out. In the meantime, as I already mentioned, break out the butter and marmalade, cause Sterling and Ty are toast.

I think the nefarious source is the dinar scam itself. It's illegal to pay someone to lie about an "investment" you're selling. It's illegal for an MSB to market currency as an investment.

99.999% of dinar have been sold under completely false pretenses, i.e. fraudulently.

It's illegal for anyone but a a licensed adviser to give investment advice, but that would constitute fraud, not money laundering .... IF that were the case however, they would not be charging them with money laundering that is very clear if you consider the definition of money laundering.

Kevind53 wrote:It's illegal for anyone but a a licensed adviser to give investment advice, but that would constitute fraud, not money laundering .... IF that were the case however, they would not be charging them with money laundering that is very clear if you consider the definition of money laundering.

"Scheme to defraud investors in the Iraqi dinar" is in the introduction of the legal document. I doubt anyone knows what all they may be charged with. No reason they can't be charged with both.

Money Laundering is specifically mentioned as well.

I know. We were speculating what crimes they were laundering the money from. If your money isn't acquired from illegal activity, there's not much need to launder it.

No, for it to be money laundering, it would have to come from some unrelated action ... unless they were running the proceeds through another of his businesses, and that does not seem to be the case.

unless they were running the proceeds  through another of his businesses, and that does not seem to be the case.

That's exactly what they were doing.  It says so in the document.

"The purposes behind some of those financial transactions included...concealing and disguising the nature, source, location, ownership, and control of fraud proceeds. (from the dinar scam)"