How do banks benefit from laundering money?

Question

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

Answer 1

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.