Understanding Anti Money Laundering

Anti Money Laundering (AML) is an international agreement created to prevent the occurrence of money laundering. This criminal practice involves concealing the true origins of ill-gotten funds through complex banking transactions and commercial exchanges. Essentially, money laundering is the criminal act of hiding the true origins of money acquired illegally by passage through a series of commercial transactions or bank transfers. The money laundering process’s ultimate scheme generally returns the “tainted” cash to the illicitly laundered party in an indirect and obscure manner. In essence, the parties to the crime of money laundering typically act in a fraud. They are both guilty of the crime because of the insincere exchange of funds and the indirect and deceptive manner in which the exchange takes place. Because these regulations are critical to protecting the public from illicit activities, most countries have imposed high penalties for financial fraud and money laundering.