Cash-Intensive Business

Criminals exploit cash-intensive businesses by depositing illicit funds under the guise of routine revenue. Repetitive cash deposits remain plausible for such enterprises, reducing immediate suspicion.

Financial institutions struggle to distinguish genuine daily takings from laundered money, especially when deposits are kept below reporting triggers and are structured across different accounts or branches.

Cash-intensive businesses enable cash wage payments that merge illicit proceeds with legitimate payroll expenses:

• They underreport revenues and off-the-books wages, reducing transparency and obscuring the true source of funds.
• They exploit local norms or preferences for cash usage, minimizing scrutiny by financial institutions and tax authorities.
• By avoiding standard payroll channels, these businesses embed illicit funds in ordinary payroll outlays, complicating the monitoring of suspicious activity.

Cash-intensive businesses frequently handle large volumes of physical currency, making them vulnerable to unwitting exploitation by criminals. Through intermingling legitimate and illicit cash:

• Criminals deposit small sums under daily revenue, masking suspicious spikes.
• Financial institutions’ monitoring efforts are hampered by commingled, lower-value transactions that appear routine.

Cash-intensive businesses are exploited by criminals to blend counterfeit bills with genuine daily receipts:

• The large volume of physical cash helps conceal the presence of forged notes.
• Financial institutions face increased difficulty distinguishing illicit funds when accepting bulk deposits.

• Criminals integrate smuggled currency into high-volume establishments, such as casinos or currency exchanges.
• These businesses commingle illicit funds with legitimate revenue, masking transaction patterns and complicating financial institutions’ due diligence.

Cash-intensive businesses facilitate drug money laundering by:

• Commingling large amounts of illicit cash with legitimate daily income streams.
• Maintaining financial accounts where excessive or unexplained cash deposits occur regularly.
• Creating challenges for banks to distinguish normal operating revenue from illicit drug proceeds.

Cash-intensive businesses, such as those in the hospitality or retail sectors, are commonly used to mask extortion proceeds.

• Criminals merge forced cash payments with legitimate daily sales.
• Large deposits, appearing as routine business income, make it harder for financial institutions to trace the funds back to extortion.

The physical enterprise (e.g., restaurant, car-wash, mini-market) that legitimately handles large volumes of cash and acts as the first-layer vehicle for co-mingling illicit currency with genuine sales before deposit.

• Serves as a vehicle for mixing extortion receipts with daily cash takings, such as those from bars, retail shops, or hospitality venues.
• High volumes of cash deposits make it challenging for financial institutions to identify illicit funds hidden among legitimate revenues.