Money laundering is the process of converting illegal proceeds into funds that appear to be legitimate through various methods. In banking and financial services, complex transaction structures may be used to hide the illegal source of funds. Here are some common money laundering techniques: 1. **Layering**: Spreading funds through multiple transactions to make them more difficult to track. For example, large sums of money are divided into multiple small transactions and transferred through different bank accounts and financial instruments. 2. **Trade finance**: Forging or exaggerating trade invoices and cooperating with other businesses to misstate the prices of goods and services in order to legally transfer funds. 3. **Derivatives and investments**: Using complex financial instruments such as derivatives and securities to conduct multiple purchases and sales to conceal the movement of funds. 4. **Shell companies**: Setting up multiple shell companies and transferring funds between these companies through fake transactions. 5. **Offshore accounts and tax havens**: Opening accounts in jurisdictions with strict confidentiality policies and lax regulation and transferring funds to these accounts to evade regulation. 6. **Loan loops**: Injecting illegal funds into the legitimate financial system through loans and repayments between related companies. 7. **Precious asset purchase**: Purchase high-value assets such as real estate, art, luxury goods, and then sell them to launder funds. 8. **Virtual currency**: Use Bitcoin or other virtual currencies to conduct anonymous transactions to hide the source of funds. These methods are often used in combination to increase the complexity of discovery and analysis. Banks and financial institutions usually take measures such as customer due diligence, transaction monitoring and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance programs to detect and prevent money laundering activities.