What is money laundering and what measures does the state take to combat it?

Money laundering means that criminals transfer illegal funds through a series of financial accounts in order to cover up the source of funds, the owner's identity or the ultimate purpose of fund use. Illegal funds that need to be "laundered" may usually be related to terrorism, drug trafficking or organized crime.

Money laundering is literally translated from the English word "money-washing", and the language expression of its image records the origin of the word: at the beginning of the 20th century, the financial director of an organized criminal gang headed by Ali Capone in Chicago, USA, bought an automatic washing machine to wash clothes for customers, and then declared it to the tax authorities by mixing the laundry with the proceeds of crime, so that the illegal income and assets were covered with a legal coat.

Money laundering in the modern sense refers to the act of concealing and concealing the source and nature of funds by various means through financial institutions, so as to legalize them in form.

The subject of money laundering crime is financial institutions or individuals, and there are five acts: (1) providing capital accounts; (2) Assisting in converting property into cash or financial instruments; (three) to assist the transfer of funds through transfer or other settlement methods; (four) to assist the remittance of funds abroad; (5) Concealing or concealing the illegal proceeds of crime and their sources and nature by other means. "

At present, the main means of money laundering are as follows.

1. Antique trading-

You bought 40 Ming Dynasty vases at $5,000 each. You put them all up for auction and store them in 12 auction houses, preferably 12 different cities. When a vase is auctioned, you either sell it to the highest bidder or send your closest uncle to the auction house to buy it back.

People usually pay everything you buy by check, so when your uncle pays $5,500 in cash (that is, the auction price of $5,000 plus the handling fee charged to the buyer 10%) to the auction house for one of the vases, they will give you a check of $4,500, that is, the auction price minus the handling fee charged to the seller 10%.

These expenses can be completely written off as money laundering expenses. Fortunately, you can auction this vase again. Of course, the premise of doing this business is that you have some aristocratic temperament.

2. Life insurance transactions-

Insurance money laundering mainly focuses on life insurance, especially group life insurance. Through long-term insurance and short-term insurance, wholesale insurance, personal insurance and other abnormal insurance and surrender methods, the purpose of transferring collective and state public funds to the unit's "small treasury", turning them into personal private funds or evading taxes is achieved.

When taking out insurance, don't forget the names of "seeking benefits for employees" and "reasonable tax avoidance"-turning part of it into personal income through normal financial channels, or directly distributing funds that need to pay high personal income tax, and turning public into private or tax evasion by taking out life insurance for its employees and then surrendering them.

However, some insurance companies still actively promote this kind of "insurance policy" when they know that the insurance purpose is not pure, and some salesmen even use it as bait to make suggestions for their business objects and actively provide convenience for "money laundering". They brought in more business and took more expenses; However, the insurance company that "talks about heroes by scale" has completed the task index in a short time, and can also deduct a handling fee from the "surrender premium". Therefore, insurance "money laundering" is more like an ugly multilateral transaction.

3. Overseas investment-

The classic practice is: when importing, exaggerate the prices of imported equipment and raw materials, pay them to foreign suppliers in the form of high commissions and discounts, then take kickbacks from them, divide the illegal income and leave the illegal income abroad; When exporting, the price of export commodities is greatly lowered, or the invoice amount is much lower than the actual transaction amount, and the foreign importer will deposit the difference in payment into the exporter external account. If you are brave enough, you can consider setting up a personal account directly in an overseas bank.

In this way, it is not surprising that some overseas branches of state-owned enterprises have evolved into professional money laundering centers. In addition, we might as well run a leather bag company to launder money through agents or children and relatives who emigrated overseas. If the competent department sends someone to investigate, it will get some painful reasons for the loss. The following consequences are even more legendary: the heads of some so-called loss-making companies and their relatives became rich within a few years and became happy American "investment immigrants"; At the same time, these China companies illegally hold foreign exchange in overseas accounts, far exceeding the amount held by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. It should be pointed out that the protagonists in this process are precisely those government officials.

4. Underground money houses-

People still remember the case of Xu Shantou underground money house in 2002. Xu's main "assets" are more than 20 accounts opened in many banks in the name of more than 20 shell companies such as Xinxing Hongzhan Agricultural and Sideline Products Firm in Jinyuan District, Shantou City. In an office with ordinary facilities, Xu's daily business is to falsify financial statements and falsely report turnover and profits, but he has been paying various taxes and insurance and has no business activities and income. Due to the huge amount of money in the bank, it may be necessary to change accounts frequently. Every few new accounts, he gradually transferred funds from the old account to the new account.

At present, underground money houses in Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang are generally integrated with change shops in Hong Kong, and they are delivered in RMB at home and in foreign exchange abroad. There is no physical process of capital flight. Underground banks often borrow money from each other to form a linkage system.

There are two "advantages" in using underground money houses to launder money. First, the cost is very low. Take the Hong Kong dollar as an example. If the exchange rate of banks is 1.08, then the exchange rate of underground banks is basically only 1. 10. Second, when going abroad, black money can often flow back in the form of gifts from relatives and friends.

Every year, Chinese mainland underground banks "launder" at least 200 billion yuan of black money, equivalent to 2% of GDP.

5. Various casinos-

Lan Fu, the former vice mayor, was caught in the Yuan Hua case. When asked about Lan Fu's unknown property and his illegal gambling abroad, he boasted that in a few years, he earned as much as $650,000 plus HK$ 330,000 through gambling. Lan Fu's lies were exposed by some people who had been to this case and gambled with him, because Lan Fu almost failed every time he gambled.

If he is a master, he enters the arena with 6.5438+million chips, loses 6.5438+million chips and leaves the arena, asking the casino to credit the remaining 9 million into his account. He set up obstacles for possible tracing in the future. Therefore, people only notice that these people are losing money, but compared with the large amount of losses in the standard money laundering model, the risk of casino money laundering is often considered acceptable.

In fact, casinos are the most traditional money laundering places. In the early days, the drug trade in the mafia was mostly cash, and the money was generally stained with white powder. Once caught by the police, it is difficult to get away with it. Mafia members will take cash to the casino and exchange it for chips. Once they lose almost 30% of their money, they will change the remaining chips into cash, which will naturally turn the stolen money into "clean" income. In today's world economic downturn, gamblers from Asia are the only growing customer base. Compared with real-life casinos, online casinos have become a safe haven for money laundering. Most of gambling sites's headquarters are located in the Caribbean, which is called a "tax haven". Many websites are not regulated by government departments at all, nor do they follow the rules of international casinos. They don't even ask customers for identity information. Many criminal groups usually gamble symbolically once or twice after putting money into these accounts opened in gambling sites, and then immediately notify the website "I don't want to play any more" and ask the website to write a check in the name of the website to return the money in their accounts. In this way, the huge amount of "black money" can easily be "washed away"! According to preliminary estimates, the amount of "black money" laundered through hundreds of gambling sites is about 600 billion to 654.38+0.5 trillion US dollars every year.

6. Securities money laundering-

June 65438+February 65438+June 2002, Yufeng International, Fuchang International and Jinhe International were ordered to suspend trading in Hong Kong for money laundering. Most of these three companies hold shares by mutual assistance, and there are few minority shareholders outside the circle. Such companies are called "dry" in the Hong Kong market, and the companies called "dry" are often regarded as "best partners" of money laundering by some international organizations.

Simply put, money laundering only refers to "the process of hiding, disguising or investing illegal income through legal activities or construction".

In a narrow sense, money laundering refers to the process of legalizing the proceeds of crime by various means to cover up its true source and existence. These criminal activities mainly include drug trafficking, smuggling, fraud, corruption, bribery and tax evasion.

In addition to money laundering in a narrow sense, money laundering in a broad sense also includes: 1) black money that launders legal funds for illegal purposes, that is, laundering money, such as smuggling through money laundering by using bank loans. 2) Wash one legal fund into another seemingly legal fund to achieve the purpose of embezzlement, that is, wash away money, such as transferring state-owned assets to personal accounts through money laundering. 3) Avoid supervision by laundering legal income, such as foreign-funded enterprises.

Transfer legitimate income abroad through money laundering.

Money laundering refers to the process of transforming illegal gains into "legal property" through financial or other institutions, which has become a very key link for the survival and development of criminal groups. On the one hand, through money laundering, organized crime covers up the traces of its criminal activities and can "properly enjoy" the proceeds of crime; On the other hand, money laundering provides funds for criminal groups to intervene in legitimate enterprises, enabling them to "legally cover up illegality" and constantly expand their criminal power.

The object of money laundering is black money, including the income generated by crimes such as drug trafficking, smuggling, arms trafficking, fraud, theft, robbery, corruption and tax evasion. Money laundering is usually divided into three steps: (1) deposit, that is, deposit illegally obtained cash in the bank; (2) Through a series of complicated transactions, such as bank transfer, cash and securities transactions, transnational fund transfer, etc. Cover up the real source of funds and legalize it; (3) Return funds to criminals in a legal form. In addition, there are many other ways of money laundering, such as buying real estate, jewelry, antiques and so on. And then convert them into cash or other financial assets.

In recent years, a new money laundering activity, namely corruption, has emerged. On a global scale, money laundering activities of public officials are becoming more and more frequent. Through various channels, they put the black money of corruption and bribery on the cloak of legitimate income. After that, we can not only openly squander and enjoy these illegal gains, but also use them for investment and appreciation, which has exceeded the traditional money laundering. This new phenomenon of money laundering is becoming more and more serious in China.

There are several ways of money laundering with "China characteristics": first, making money first and then laundering money, that is, a large number of public officials resign to run a company or stock market in Shanghai after taking bribes, and explain his abnormal wealth with a new identity; The second is to make money while laundering money, that is, to engage in "one family, two systems" and use their own power to make money on the stage, and relatives use their "going to sea" status to cover up the source of black money; Third, to make money by money laundering, that is, government officials or CEOs of state-owned enterprises set up private enterprises and agency enterprises (enterprises are ostensibly owned by others, but their power is in their own hands), which can not only transfer black money to the accounts of these enterprises through economic exchanges, but also make another sum through normal tax payment operations.

The other is transnational money laundering, that is, taking advantage of the increasingly close contact between domestic and foreign markets, trying to transfer black money out, or collecting illegal funds abroad and laundering money. Although the international money laundering activities of domestic corrupt elements have not yet formed a scale, they have occupied an increasing proportion in international money laundering. Some leading cadres began to lay a foundation abroad and get their children and funds out. Nowadays, there is a kind of "study abroad aristocrat" among the international students in China. Most of them are not the children of "big money" in China, but when they first arrived overseas, they had a lot of money in their bank deposit accounts. When the middle class in developed countries still want to buy houses by stages, these international students have already bought houses in local rich areas, paying hundreds of thousands or even millions at a time.

Transfer illegal income. Such as funds obtained from corruption, bribery and rent-seeking, embezzled state-owned assets, and huge wealth obtained from smuggling, bootlegging, fraud and tax evasion, so as to turn public into private. As China is in the period of system transition, the incentive, restraint and internal supervision mechanisms of state-owned and collective enterprises are not perfect, domestic parent companies transfer their assets and profits to overseas subsidiaries or overseas investors in various ways, so that a few people can gain greater control over overseas public assets, or directly turn public assets into private assets.

There are three main ways of money laundering: the first way is to sign contracts with overseas countries for remittance, and at this time, domestic and foreign countries usually cooperate with each other to make fake documents; The second is to remit money through underground banks; The third is to diversify investment. At present, most of the black money smuggled and accumulated in Chaoshan area is laundered through underground banks. "There are two reasons. The first is that the cost of money laundering through underground banks is very low. Take the Hong Kong dollar as an example. If the exchange rate of banks is 0.8, then the exchange rate of underground banks is basically only 1. 10. The second is that there are many overseas Chinese in Chaoshan area, and when black money goes abroad, it often returns in the form of gifts from relatives and friends. "

In fact, it has become an open secret that underground money houses launder money for smuggling criminals, not only in Chaoshan area, but also in Fujian and Zhejiang areas. Relevant materials show that in the smuggling case of Yuan Hua in Xiamen, Lai Changxing's income flowed abroad through underground banks. From 1996 to 1998, Yuan Hua's smuggling income of1200 million yuan was remitted to an underground bank in Guangzhou by Chief Financial Officer Zhuang Jianqun under the pseudonym of "Yellow River", and then the "Yellow River" informed Hong Kong partners to pay foreign exchange to the original Chinese institutions in Hong Kong. It is estimated that China launders up to 200 billion yuan through underground banks every year.

Complete the arduous task of anti-money laundering through seven aspects: First, strengthen anti-money laundering work.

Organize and lead the anti-money laundering work, effectively improve the understanding of anti-money laundering work, and strictly implement the leadership responsibility system and work responsibility system; Second, actively do a good job in the unified management of local and foreign currencies against money laundering and complete the integration and transformation of the anti-money laundering information system; Third, strictly exercise the power of administrative punishment according to law, fully understand the seriousness of anti-money laundering supervision, and firmly establish the consciousness of administration according to law; Fourth, prepare for the anti-money laundering supervision of the securities and insurance industry; Fifth, pay close attention to the clues of suspicious transaction cases, and strive to actively find and crack the breakthrough of major criminal cases through anti-money laundering information; Sixth, explore innovative means and methods of anti-money laundering supervision; Seventh, vigorously cultivate and establish a qualified anti-money laundering supervision team.