How do banks benefit from laundering money?

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I just finished the episode of Dirty Money: Cartel Banks. And I still don’t get why a bank would purposely launder money with the risk of getting fined. I know they don’t usually get fined much anyway, but how does the actual bank benefit from this

Edit bonus question : can the government not sieze the illegal laundered money? I mean they see the money in the bank and they know it’s laundered and its illegal.

In: Economics

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Money launderers take a cut of the money in exchange for laundering it. The fines are rarely anywhere near the amount of profit they make. And that’s assuming they get caught.

Anonymous 0 Comments

A bank makes money by giving loans. Turning a blind eye to money laundering gives them more money to loan out, which means more profit for them.

At that point it becomes a risk assessment. If they believe they can make $30,000,000 off the laundered money, and that the fine *if they’re caught* will be around $10,000,000, they’re going to look the other way and pocket the money.

TLDR: the rewards outweigh the risk to the bank.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Banks charge a fee for each transaction. Often banks charge higher fees to compensate for transaction that are riskier and could result in a fine. For many, it is the cost of doing business as the fines are always less than the total commission fees collected.

That’s why they’ve been called banksters since the 20s.