Editing Money laundering (section)

===Definition===
Money laundering is the conversion or transfer of property; the concealment or disguising of the nature of the proceeds; the acquisition, possession or use of property, knowing that these are derived from criminal acts; the participating in or assisting the movement of funds to make the proceeds appear legitimate.

Money obtained from certain crimes, such as [[extortion]], [[insider trading]], [[drug trafficking]], [[human trafficking]], and [[illegal gambling]] is "dirty" and 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 that vary in complexity and sophistication.

Money laundering typically involves three steps: The first involves introducing cash into the financial system by some means ("placement"); the second involves carrying out complex financial transactions to camouflage the illegal source of the cash ("layering"); and finally, 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 not need to be placed.<ref name="chasing dirty money">{{Cite book |last=Reuter |first=Peter |url=https://archive.org/details/chasing_reu_2004_00_6674 |title=Chasing Dirty Money |publisher=Peterson |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-88132-370-2 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

According to the [[United States Treasury Department]]:
{{Blockquote|sign=|source=|Money laundering is the process of making illegally-gained proceeds (i.e., "dirty money") appear legal (i.e., "clean"). Typically, it involves three steps: placement, layering, and integration. First, the illegitimate funds are furtively introduced into the legitimate financial system. Then, the money is moved around to create confusion, sometimes by wiring or transferring through numerous accounts. Finally, it is integrated into the financial system through additional transactions until the "dirty money" appears "clean".<ref>{{Cite web |date=30 June 2015 |title=History of Anti-Money Laundering Laws |url=https://www.fincen.gov/history-anti-money-laundering-laws |access-date=30 June 2015 |publisher=United States Department of the Treasury |archive-date=8 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161208052823/https://www.fincen.gov/history-anti-money-laundering-laws |url-status=live }}</ref>}}