Everyone’s heard the term money laundering, but few know how to access this hidden and freely accessible world. So, in a completely legal and ethically sound explainer, here’s a simple how-to guide:

Say, you’re a middleman in an arms deal – used entirely to secure a high-value deal at any cost (see: How to Profit from the Global Arms Trade). Your next move? Delivering on the promises made to your well-placed political allies or senior officials to secure the deal… Paying a PEP (Politically Exposed Person) is simple, and yet deeply complicated. It’s a straightforward bribe, carefully layered in plausible deniability. Whether it’s done through cash or discreet offshore assets, the key is avoiding attention. You must stay out of sight of financial institutions and prying journalists. Avoid triggering red flags in global banking networks. Don’t stir up any nosy watchdogs in the NGO world either. Any of these could lead to a political scandal – disastrous for your future business operations. Especially if it ends with you behind bars, disappeared, or falling from a sixth-story window.

So, how does this work in practice – efficiently, and without ending up in prison, assassinated, or, worse, both? Fortunately, money laundering has a time-tested, proven formula. The operation typically follows three key steps to clean the cash and get away with it:

          STEP 1: You must first source the illicit funds. 

The arms trade is the perfect vehicle for sourcing illicit funds – accounting for around 40% of all corruption in global trade. It’s likely the sector where you’ll have the best chance of skimming something off the top of a high-value deal. Bogus invoicing is routine, and no one bats an eye. Once you’ve pocketed your cut for brokering the deal, it’s laundry day: time to clean the cash before forwarding it to any PEPs. Only then can the money be used without being traced back to illegal activity or so-called ‘commissions’ (let’s be honest – bribes) that could expose the middleman – namely, you. All, of course, in the name of ‘good business’.

          STEP 2: Integration into the shell structure. 

This phase involves several steps, beginning with the establishment of a shell company registered in a discreet jurisdiction – offshore British territories such as the British Virgin Islands (BVI) are commonly used for this purpose. In typical money laundering fashion, you should intentionally give the company a dull and generic name, make it sound painfully boring enough to blend in and avoid detection. Let’s go with Beige Asset Holdings Ltd, it could be anything, or nothing, that’s the point. Importantly, when setting up this company, the true ownership – Your Name – should remain completely hidden. Sure, it’s technically illegal to conceal the beneficial ownership, but 50,000 other shell companies in the BVI get away with it, so it will barely be a blip in the radar. If desired, one could establish up to 15 shell companies within 48 hours – an extreme measure often driven by paranoia. While possible, it entails additional effort (typically outsourced at low cost) and is generally not essential.

Once Beige Asset Holdings is incorporated, the next step is to establish a bank account. Offshore financial centers such as Dubai or Hong Kong are often preferred for their reputations for strict banking privacy and complex financial infrastructures, which make tracing beneficial ownership especially difficult. Institutions like HSBC in Hong Kong could easily be recognised for their consistent ability to maintain plausible deniability. These locations also serve as major global financial hubs, where high volumes of legitimate transactions help obscure the movement of illicit funds – clean and dirty money flowing side by side. Banks in these jurisdictions are also known for their limited cooperation with international investigations, which can prove advantageous. To further conceal ownership, accounts should be held through nominee directors, typically arranged through trust or corporate service providers. With the company and its bank account in place, Beige Asset Holdings would now appear – on paper – as a legitimate commodity trading firm.

Finally, the fun part: the transaction phase. The part where funds begin to move. At this stage, arms companies would either wire inflated payments to Beige Asset Holdings under the guise of services such as “consulting,” “logistics,” or “marketing,” or Beige Asset Holdings would purchase arms at significantly inflated prices. In both scenarios, a substantial sum – say, $1.2 million – would be transferred to Beige Asset Holdings’ offshore account in Dubai or Hong Kong. The funds are now several layers removed from their origin, effectively obscuring their true source and purpose.

Congratulations, you’ve just made money disappear. But…

          STEP 3: Paying the PEP.

Now the most challenging part of the money laundering operation: paying a politically exposed person (PEP) without leaving a paper trail that can be traced back to you – silence, secrecy and plausible deniability. Fortunately, there are a number of relatively easy options for you:

          Option A : The most common and easiest route is to set up a private foundation or trust. In choosing the location, think of one of the usual suspects: Liechtenstein, Panama or the ever-reliable BVI. Make sure it’s set up on behalf of ‘family interests’, a phrase so vague it could simply mean retirement savings. Not to overwhelm you, but you’ll need to set up a second shell company to front this trust, so time to pick another name – Premium Source Capital Ltd. – let us go with this, the kind of name that sounds like it belongs to a real business, but it doesn’t. Then, your original ghost company, Beige Asset Holdings, would transfer dividends or investment capital directly to Premium Source Capital. Boom – money delivered – looks legitimate; simple, clean, and undeniable. 

          Option B : Property – now this is the laundromat of choice for the rich. London is your laundromat: sky-high prices, minimal questions, and a bunch of high-value vacant buildings to sieve through. Beige Asset Holdings buys the flat, with the name on the deed being someone close-ish to the PEP – say, a cousin, nephew, or that one friend who always owes them favours. At a later date, when any mention of the arms deal diminishes, the PEP would quietly and privately visit London with the intention of selling, renting or refinancing the asset. If feeling lucky or brave enough, they could even attempt to transfer the deed into their own name, but this could prove reckless, so best not to play around.

          Option C : A rising favourite for money laundering is the use of prepaid debit cards, which are becoming increasingly popular in southern Africa’s tobacco and gold smuggling scenes. These cards allow criminals to move large sums across borders with minimal scrutiny, bypassing traditional banking systems. However, there is no reason this technique couldn’t be used in other regions globally. With the prepaid card market projected to hit $6.87 trillion by 2030, it presents a major opportunity for exploitation as a money laundering route. Beige Asset Holdings loads up Visa or Mastercard debit cards issued through British offshore territories in the Caribbean or the UAE. These cards can potentially hold up to $250,000 and can be used virtually anywhere in the world – which can be swiped as easily as a Starbucks gift card – no questions asked. Of course, the PEP can’t be seen flashing this card around, so best to hand it to a close aide, such as their driver or personal assistant. 

          Option D : A shadier option, but for those that prefer the classics, there’s always Hawala – an ancient, untraceable and informal transfer system built entirely on trust with zero paperwork. Based on the honour of a huge network of money brokers (known as hawaladars), more common in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Just send funds from Beige Asset Holdings to your friendly neighbourhood Hawala broker in, say, Dubai (our unofficial co-conspirator at this point). An associate Hawala broker would then hand over a bag of ‘clean’ cash directly to the PEP or his collector. US dollars are preferred but if you’re into more tropical money laundering, other currencies can be arranged, of course at a slightly higher commission.

Other options?

Listen, the playbook is far from limited. Beige Asset Holdings can also invest in high-value ultra-launderable luxury goods like fine art, jewellery, collectable watches, high-end cars, or whatever the rich have been hoarding recently. Once purchased, you can simply ‘gift’ them to your PEP or hand them to their trusty bagman, no invoices, no questions. There are also more adventurous ways to hide funds in more substantial projects – like construction. Pick any country, say in the Balkans, the US, or literally anywhere you can get the insurance, slap together a half-built building, and almost by magic, you’ve got a laundromat with scaffolding you can sit on for years. Not without mention, one of the rising stars in modern money laundering is crypto. Beige Asset Holdings can simply purchase cryptocurrency, which you can later transfer directly to the PEP or their proxies. No banks, no borders, no bureaucrats – just pure untraceable wealth. 

So…

Whichever route you choose – in the end – the PEP walks away with their laundered wealth – whether it’s in stacks of ‘clean’ cash, discreet holdings in crypto, luxury property, or tucked-away in offshore assets buried beneath a shell company in the Caymans. And you? You stay in the shadows, with your hands washed and your name clear. By now, you have an established complex web of shell companies, trusts, nominee directors, and bogus contracts stretched across multiple jurisdictions that probably won’t cooperate in international investigations anyway. The investigative trail will quickly dissolve into a disarray of legal ambiguity. Luckily for you – until the government authorities seriously attempt to combat routes of corruption (spoiler: they won’t!) – access to these illicit financial flows will continue to work in your favour for many generations to come. So… what’s your next arms deal!?

[This guide is for comedic purposes only. If you’re actually laundering money, please stop and hand yourself into the closest police station.]