She's a professor and the director of

the Financial Crime Intelligence Program

at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

- I've been teaching courses on money laundering

for more than 20 years.

- [Narrator] Today, Moyara is going to review

what Hollywood gets right and wrong

in money-laundering scenes.

[suspenseful music]

[siren blaring]

- Money laundering is a necessary step for most criminals,

especially if they have a lot of criminal revenue.

They need to clean it if they don't want

law enforcement to seize it,

and if they don't want the IRS

to come after them for tax evasion.

That's what money laundering is,

is the process of making dirty money clean.

First up, "Wolf of Wall Street."

In this scene, Jordan Belfort hires family members

and other associates to smuggle cash into Switzerland.

[energetic music]

- [Narrator] The next day, Aunt Emma flew to Geneva,

two million in cash in her carry-on,

which in the big picture was a drop in the Swiss bucket.

Because the following month,

over the course of six round trips,

Chantalle's family and friends smuggled in

over 20 million in cash without even a hiccup.

- This happened back in the 1990s, prior to 9/11.

I don't know if any of you remember what airport security

was like before 9/11, but it wasn't at all

anything like what we have today.

Maybe they would've been able to move that cash past TSA

without any questions asked, but technically,

by law, they still would've been required to fill out

documentation for any amount of cash over $10,000.

It's not against the law to move the cash.

You just have to report it.

- And I have some more. - Really?

- Here. - Oh, thank you.

- And here. - Welcome. [laughing]

- And yeah, like four bags of it.

- Are you Swiss Slovakian or Swiss Slovenian?

- What they do get right is once they get the cash

into Switzerland, in the early 1990s,

they probably would've been able to find a Swiss banker

who was willing to accept all of that cash

without any questions asked.

But in 1998, Switzerland toughened

its anti-money laundering laws.

And so that would not have happened after that date.

In fact, here's a little fun fact.

Between 1998 and the end of 2001,

when the new anti-money laundering provisions

of the USA Patriot Act went into effect,

Switzerland had tougher anti-money laundering laws

than the United States.

In fact, Switzerland is quite cooperative

with international law enforcement

when it comes to going after criminals.

Next up, "Ozark".

In this clip, Marty gives us a lesson

on the art of money-laundering.

- [Marty] Okay, money laundering 101.

Say you come across a suitcase

with five million bucks in it.

What would you buy?

A yacht, a mansion, a sports car?

Sorry, the IRS won't let you buy anything of value with it.

- Right off the bat here, we're talking about

how much cash can we actually it into a suitcase?

He mentions $5 million in a suitcase.

That would have to be a really big suitcase,

about 10 briefcases worth of cash,

and that's assuming that it's brand-new $100 bills.

But most cash that comes from drug sales

isn't going to be in the form of $100 bills.

It's gonna be in the form of 20s, 10s, 50s, you name it.

- [Marty] So you better get that money

into the banking system.

But here's the problem.

That dirty money?

It's too clean, looks like it

just came out of the bank vault.

You gotta age it up, crumple it, drag it through the dirt,

run it over with your car.

Anything to make it look like it's been around the block.

Next, you need a cash business.

Something pleasant.

You miss the five million with the cash

from the joyful business.

- What Marty is doing very effectively here

is setting up lots of businesses in which

he can commingle his cash.

So he has the strip club, he has the mortuary,

and he has the casino,

all of which are cash-intensive businesses.

That is exactly what a money launderer might try to do,

because you are disguising all that dirty cash

as revenue from your business.

Your very lucrative business.

- [Marty] That mixture goes from an American bank...

To a bank from any country

that doesn't have to listen to the IRS.

- The bank tanks that money, puts it into his account,

and at that point, he can move it wherever he likes.

He could use it for a variety of reasons, ostensibly,

but what he's really doing is having his bank

wire that money, ultimately, to another bank

in a foreign location, where the drug criminal,

in this case, now has complete access to the funds

and can even withdraw the cash from the ATM machine.

In my professional opinion, this is very realistic.

- [Marty] It's as legitimate as anybody else's.

- [Moyara] "The Sopranos".

- 9,900.

- In this clip, Carmela is depositing the money

that she stole from Tony in increments of $9,900.

- Interestingly, at $10,000, we're required by law

to notify the IRS of the transaction.

- Oh, really?

- This clip is a perfect example of structuring.

Structuring is when you're breaking down

a large amount of cash into smaller amounts

below that $10,000 threshold

in order to avoid filling out a currency transaction report.

The crime itself of structuring, technically,

even depositing $9,900 just once in order to

avoid that $10,000 reporting threshold,

politicians and grandmothers alike

have fallen into that trap.

- I want it in something safe, something old economy.

Maybe treasuries.

- If you'll notice from her notebook,

she's only making just the one deposit,

and she's doing it at multiple banks,

which is a smart move on her part

because the banks don't talk to each other,

and so they're not noticing a pattern.

If she were to make all of those deposits

of $9,900 all at the same bank,

it would definitely trigger a suspicious activity report

and she'd probably get caught.

Next up, "Breaking Bad".

- You know you need to launder your money, right?

Do you understand the basics of it,

placement, layering, integration?

- I ain't buying no damn nail salon, so just forget it.

- In this scene, Saul explains beautifully

two out of the three money laundering stages

and why one even needs to launder money in the first place.

- Well, you wanna stay out of jail, don't ya?

You wanna keep your money and your freedom?

'Cause I got three little letters for ya, I-R-S.

If they can get Capone, they can get you.

- I really like this scene.

In fact, I like it so much

that I actually show it in my classes to my students,

because they start off learning the first three

traditional stages of money laundering,

which is placement, where he's putting the dirty drug money

into the proceeds of the nail salon.

Layering he combines with the placement,

but layering is when you move the money around

just to muddy the money trail

and make it very difficult for law enforcement to follow it.

And then integration.

Once the money is clean enough that you can take it

and actually spend it.

- Here's you, right?

Pink, Pinkman, get it?

Okay, here's your cash.

You're out on the town, yeah, you're partying hearty