It essentially gets moved around banks, at each stage the account owner is taking a cut but ultimately it requires a friendly bank to hold the majority of the funds and not give it back when requested, usually because you have set up some kind of plausible route for the funds to be in your possession.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Bank_heist

$81m was sent to a bank in the Philippines and less than 25% was recovered. Other banks had success is recovering all the funds sent through them as part of the same heist.

Well the one in the article didn't, so there's your answer?

well... unless it was shot in the blue sky - how did someone plan to launder that much money? i mean such amount will certainly attract attention from local bank, wouldn't it?

I doubt they thought it would really work so hadn't actually thought through how to launder the money. On the other hand, it was Lithuania so who knows how hard or easy it might be there.

I'm sure there are any number of bankers in various countries who would gladly help you out for a 30-50% cut.

If I was in the con game and knew a loophole to get my hands on $100m, I doubt I'd wait around too long to figure out all the details and risk the loophole being closed.

Also, side note, you have to wonder if the conman had some detailed insider knowledge of existing legitimate PO #s, like from the actual vendor's insecure systems. Hack a vendor, get PO #s and beat them to sending the invoice. Hope you get the money and can disappear faster than the vendor sends his invoice and alarm bells go off.

What's wrong with Lithuania?

Sorry, on re-reading I can see how my comment could be read as somewhat dismissive or insulting of Lithuania. I meant it quite the opposite and more literally as in it's not a well-known data point, so there aren't a lot of people who can speak to the subject of whether money laundering is more or less difficult there vs. the US.

Nothing. It's not a part of the Soviet Union anymore. Granted, it's the poorest of the baltics, but it's still a civilized place.

right, it was a half baked plan, but its not impossible. typically you would want either a corporate account in a country with little accurate banking information required, and then you would obfuscate the origins with casinos. (Fake players losing, or simply exchanging large amounts of chips which have no record of ownership, but this is a nuance because it only need to happen on paper)

To get it back to you in large amounts as clean money, you would need to have another corporation that contracts with the casino or other service provider, and it is paid with money that is clean for all intents and purposes.

Basically what Bitcoin laundering does: create a bunch of users, route the money in small transactions a million times, and repeat the process. Except what you're also suggesting is doing it in a country where that specific information would be obscured even further.

yeah I didn't want to derail the discussion with cryptocurrency, as it is better and requires less cooperation, between partners.

but the problem here is the name on the bank accounts even if you wanted to get to cryptocurrency, you would really want a nominee director on the corporate bank account, but then you have to trust they don't take the money (there are plenty of reputable ones though).

if you had that much in cash already then you could buy mining hardware. set up a solar powered mining farm and get cryptocurrency over the next 6-12 months, then you have the liquidity. if you are interested in national currency and bigger material things, then you will still need to contract w/ a crypto-service so that you could report income, but the crypto-service's funding source would be a deadend for auditors.

There are many reasons to mine at a loss.

Or a country where you can bribe some clerk to "lose" the paper work. So basically anywhere.