Jewelry

• Shell companies can acquire high-value jewelry under the pretense of corporate assets or trade operations.
• This allows illicit cash to be converted into portable, easily movable items that can be resold or exported.
• The obscured corporate ownership masks the true source of funds behind the purchases, aiding in integration.

• Criminals purchase high-value jewelry, often composed of precious metals and gemstones, using illicit funds outside standard financial channels.
• The portability and subjective valuation of these items enable rapid resale or transport, masking the funds’ true origin.
• Complicit dealers or weak oversight allow repeated buy-sell cycles, layering illegal profits and integrating them into the legitimate economy.

• Fictitious jewelry sales serve as a front for concealing criminal funds.
• Perpetrators fabricate invoices, shipping records, and valuations, presenting illicit income as profits from high-value pieces. They exploit subjective pricing and authenticity claims to evade detection.

• Coins generated from block rewards (e.g., through proof-of-work mining) have no prior transaction history, making it difficult to link them directly to the original illicit funds used to cover mining expenses.
• Criminals channel tainted money into hardware, energy costs, or rented hash power, receiving newly minted crypto with a seemingly 'clean' ledger entry.
• This process constitutes a layering tactic by integrating illicit proceeds into newly forged assets, breaking any on-chain link to the dirty source.

• Proposed name: Pension or Superannuation Fund Accounts.
• Criminals deposit illicit sums disguised as 'legitimate retirement contributions,' often far exceeding any plausible income level.
• Self-managed or private pension plans allow rapid rollovers to multiple funds—even across different jurisdictions—creating complex layers that obscure the funds' criminal origin.
• Fraudulent beneficiary designations (e.g., next-of-kin) conceal true ownership and hamper institutions' ability to detect unusual account activity.
• Ultimately, withdrawals appear as routine pension disbursements, providing an air of legitimacy and completing the laundering process.

• By misrepresenting the quality or authenticity of jewelry, criminals justify inflated or deflated purchase/sale amounts.
• Forged appraisals or certificates facilitate large financial transfers under the guise of normal jewelry transactions, allowing illicit proceeds to appear derived from legitimate trading activity.

• Criminals inflate or understate jewelry appraisals to insert or extract illicit funds from transactions under misleading valuations.
• The subjective nature of jewelry pricing—relying on appraisers who may not verify authenticity or origin—allows repeated resale of the same item at widely varying prices.
• High portability and ease of cross-border shipment facilitate layering: criminals can move pieces across jurisdictions, obscuring money trails and sidestepping stricter oversight.
• Missing or falsified documentation, such as improperly obtained or absent Kimberley Process Certificates for diamond jewelry, further hinders traceability and weakens verification of actual value.

• Jewelry composed of precious metals or gemstones retains high value in a small, easily transportable form.
• Criminals purchase these items with illegal proceeds and then physically smuggle them across borders using personal couriers or concealment methods.
• Because jewelry can be melted down or disassembled, it is difficult for authorities to trace once altered, enabling launderers to obscure its origin.
• After crossing into weaker regulatory environments, smugglers resell the jewelry or use it as collateral, injecting illicit money into legitimate financial systems without attracting the same scrutiny as large cash transfers.

• Criminals acquire or craft jewelry containing precious metals or stones, leveraging the high value-to-weight ratio and variability in appraisals to disguise illicit funds.
• Jewelry's portability and ease of cross-border transport allow criminals to move concealed value to different jurisdictions with minimal scrutiny.
• Rapid resale, often through dealers or auctions, transforms illicit assets into ostensibly legitimate revenue by merging them with lawful transactions.

• Criminals convert illicit funds into gold jewelry, which offers portable, high-value items that can be resold.
• They exploit minimal or non-face-to-face customer verification in certain retail or secondhand markets, bypassing thorough identity checks.
• Cross-border transport and resale of jewelry further sever the tracing of illicit cash, creating an appearance of legitimate personal transactions.

• Payment tokens are digital tokens primarily designed for transferring value quickly and across borders with minimal friction.
• Criminals exploit their pseudonymous nature and fast settlement features to send multiple low-value transfers (smurfing) below surveillance thresholds, evading reporting triggers.
• Platforms lacking robust KYC or operating in loosely regulated jurisdictions allow launderers to convert illicit funds into and out of these tokens in smaller increments over time, further distancing proceeds from their criminal origin.

• Criminals submit falsified or forged medical or hardship documentation to initiate early withdrawals under false pretenses.
• They exploit short processing windows to obtain funds before thorough scrutiny of supporting documents.
• Since payouts resemble legitimate disbursements, the illicit proceeds are more easily integrated into financial channels, reducing immediate red flags.

• High-value jewelry is stored in freeport vaults, where the record-keeping requirements imposed by operators are often lax.
• Shell or offshore entities pay storage fees and officially register as owners, concealing the jewelry’s true beneficiary.
• The small, portable nature of jewelry makes it easy to transport or sell without drawing attention, facilitating hidden transfers of illicit wealth.

Criminals exploit these accounts—often opened or used without the genuine merchant’s knowledge—to channel illicit funds through normal customer payment channels. By routing unauthorized deposits into legitimate transaction flows, they mix criminal proceeds with genuine sales, making it difficult for financial institutions to isolate suspicious activity. In aggregator or sub-merchant models, multiple merchants’ funds are collectively settled into a single account, further obscuring the true origin and beneficial owners of the illicit portion. Repeated small-sum transactions remain below typical detection thresholds, effectively hiding illicit funds among legitimate revenues.

• Criminals can repurpose or present illegally mined gold as jewelry to bypass detailed scrutiny of its original sourcing.
• Jewelry maintains high resale value and is transportable, allowing criminals to relocate and sell the items, thereby reintegrating illicit proceeds into the formal market.
• Minimal verification for jewelry transactions in certain jurisdictions helps criminals obscure the metal’s criminal provenance.