In the banking and financial services industry, money laundering often involves using complex transaction structures to conceal the source and destination of illegal funds. Here are some common complex transaction structures and methods: 1. **Layering**: - **Multi-level transactions**: funds are transferred multiple times, exchanged into different currencies, or traded across borders to increase the difficulty of tracking. - **Using financial instruments**: such as derivatives, trusts, offshore accounts, etc., to conduct complex financial operations to conceal the source of funds. 2. **Using shell companies and shell companies**: - **Setting up fake companies**: By registering multiple companies and conducting fake transactions or invoice operations, it makes the funds appear to be generated by legitimate business. - **Transnational corporate structures**: Taking advantage of legal differences in different countries, funds are transferred between multinational companies to obscure the flow of funds. 3. **Real estate and high-value asset investment**: - **Purchase of real estate**: Converting illegal funds into legal assets by purchasing high-value assets such as real estate, high-end artworks, and jewelry. - **Repeated buying and selling**: Frequently buying and selling high-value assets to conceal the source of funds through price fluctuations. 4. **Abuse of banking products and services**: - **Structured deposits**: Using layered deposit products to conceal the source of funds through complex financial arrangements. - **Credit cards and loans**: Using multiple credit cards or multiple loans to disperse illegal funds into different accounts. 5. **Cross-border transfers and offshore financial centers**: - **Using offshore banks**: Transferring funds to offshore financial centers with loose supervision to increase the concealment of fund transfers. - **Virtual currency**: Using cryptocurrencies for cross-border transfers and using their anonymity to conceal transaction details. 6. **Disguising legitimate business**: - **Trade finance**: Mixing illegal funds into legitimate trade through false trade contracts, exaggerating or reducing invoice amounts. - **Entertainment and sports**: Mixing illegal funds into legitimate business channels such as sponsorship and ticket sales. **Preventive measures**: Financial institutions usually adopt anti-money laundering (AML) measures, including customer due diligence (KYC), suspicious transaction reporting (STR), transaction monitoring systems, etc., to detect and prevent money laundering. In addition, international cooperation and information sharing are also important means to combat cross-border money laundering. It should be emphasized that money laundering is a serious illegal act involving a variety of criminal activities, including drug trafficking, corruption, terrorist financing, etc. The laws of various countries have strict penalties for money laundering, and financial institutions and individuals should abide by relevant laws and regulations and actively cooperate in anti-money laundering work.