Human Trafficking

Human traffickers forcibly exploit victims for labor or sexual services to generate illicit proceeds, forming the raw capital that must subsequently be laundered.

Traffickers use front or shell companies (e.g., massage parlors, recruitment agencies) to conceal the true ownership and nature of activities tied to forced labor or sexual exploitation. By falsifying payroll records and underreporting wages, they blend illicit proceeds with legitimate revenue, exploiting vulnerabilities in customer due diligence that fail to identify the real controllers and beneficiaries of these businesses.

Traffickers frequently move and layer funds across multiple jurisdictions, particularly those with weaker AML enforcement. This complicates detection and limits authorities' ability to trace proceeds back to forced labor or sexual exploitation.

• Consolidates information on regions and countries known for weak AML controls or prevalent human trafficking.
• Supports transaction monitoring by highlighting high-risk corridors or suspicious geographic flows.
• Assists in prioritizing reviews of funds passing through trafficking hotspots or poorly regulated jurisdictions.

• Provide comprehensive records of deposits, withdrawals, wire transfers, and other account movements.
• Enable identification of recurring structuring or layering patterns typical of trafficking networks.
• Help detect funnel account usage and apparent co-mingling of illicit funds from forced labor or sexual exploitation.

• Provide details of employee identities, roles, and payroll data.
• Help identify false or suspicious wage payments, non-existent employees, and underreported labor in potential forced-labor fronts.
• Enable cross-checking payroll expenses against actual workforce operations to detect exploitation patterns.

• Detail revenue figures, operational capacity, and expenses for businesses.
• Reveal discrepancies in claimed operations, such as bars or massage parlors, when fronts are used to launder trafficking proceeds.
• Highlight unusual operational patterns or inflated revenues indicating forced labor exploitation.

• Document job postings and candidate placements through recruitment agencies.
• Detect minimal legitimate hires but significant wage flows indicative of human trafficking fronts.
• Uncover nonexistent positions or misrepresented roles used to funnel illicit proceeds.

• Contains verified customer identities, beneficial ownership details, and risk profiles.
• Allows verification of inconsistent or incomplete documentation, especially when customers claim legitimate business while concealing proceeds from forced labor or sexual exploitation.
• Supports detection of atypical or unexplained changes in customer information and account activities.

• Document ownership and transactions of real property and valuables.
• Enable detection of sudden acquisitions funded by unexplained deposits potentially tied to trafficking proceeds.
• Help trace beneficial owners of real estate or luxury items used to launder illicit funds from forced labor or sexual exploitation.

• Provide details of funds transfers between different jurisdictions, including amounts, participating institutions, and settlement processes.
• Help identify large or frequent transnational movements inconsistent with normal business activities, which are common in trafficking networks.
• Aid in tracing layered transactions across multiple borders to obscure illicit origins.

• Capture transactional origin and destination details with associated geolocation.
• Highlight frequent remittances or financial flows to zones at high risk for human trafficking.
• Cross-reference with other records to confirm suspicious movement of funds tied to exploitation networks.

Provides official registration details, ownership structures, and historical changes for businesses. By reviewing these records, investigators can:

• Identify undisclosed beneficial owners or shell companies concealing proceeds from forced labor or sexual exploitation.
• Verify the legitimacy of corporate entities presented as recruitment agencies, bars, or massage parlors commonly used to funnel illicit funds.
• Detect connections between entities and higher-risk individuals or suspicious business networks, aiding in uncovering human trafficking operations.

Conduct thorough checks on businesses operating in the hospitality, entertainment, or labor recruiting sectors to detect forced labor or sexual exploitation. This includes verifying employee rosters, comparing payroll data to actual staff, confirming beneficial ownership for front or shell companies, and reviewing wage disbursement patterns for anomalies that may signal trafficking-related financial flows.

Configure scenario-based alerts for unusual cash deposits and withdrawals, frequent transfers to high-risk jurisdictions lacking a clear economic purpose, and payroll distributions to unverified recipients. Analyze patterns of low-value payments made repeatedly at odd hours, track funneling activity across multiple jurisdictions, and detect interactions with known human-trafficking hotspots or high-risk industries, such as bars, massage parlors, and unlicensed labor agencies.

Use public records, media reports, and external databases to verify the legitimacy of businesses and labor agencies suspected of masking human trafficking operations. Confirm operating permits, actual employee counts, and real corporate addresses or phone numbers. Identify mismatches in local records versus claimed operations to uncover shell entities exploiting forced labor or sexual exploitation networks.

• Regularly recheck high-risk accounts or businesses exposed to labor or sex trafficking indicators.
• Review payroll data to confirm employee legitimacy.
• Monitor sudden shifts in ownership or wages.
• Escalate new red flags, such as abrupt spikes in international wires to personal accounts.
• Continuously update risk assessments as operational or employee patterns evolve.

• Human traffickers open multiple bank accounts under the names of shell or front companies (e.g., bars, massage parlors), depositing funds from forced labor or sexual exploitation alongside legitimate revenues.
• They structure deposits below reporting thresholds or use funnel accounts across jurisdictions, making it difficult to trace the original illicit source.
• Repeated inter-account transfers further layer the funds, masking the links to trafficking victims and complicating oversight by financial institutions.

• Offenders invest human trafficking proceeds, such as profits from forced labor or sexual services, in properties, converting illicit cash into seemingly lawful assets.
• Ownership under personal or corporate names enables them to claim legitimate rental income or future capital gains, obscuring connections to trafficking activities.
• Real estate investments serve as long-term stores of value, helping traffickers distance illicit funds from the exploitation that generated them.

• Shell or front businesses accepting card payments label them as legitimate sales, effectively co-mingling funds from trafficking with standard commercial income.
• Debit cards tied to funnel accounts allow traffickers to withdraw or transfer proceeds across multiple locations, reducing transparent audit trails.
• Traffickers exploit repeated card transactions to integrate illegal profits into normal commerce, obscuring the actual source of funds tied to forced labor or exploitation.

• Traffickers often receive cash directly from forced labor sites or sexual services, granting them immediate control over illicit funds.
• By depositing smaller amounts into multiple bank branches or mingling it with lawful proceeds from front businesses, they avoid raising red flags.
• The anonymity and portability of cash enable quick placement and layering, reducing transparency and direct associations with trafficking victims.

• Traffickers purchase high-end vehicles, watches, or other upscale items using illicit cash or through seemingly legitimate front business transactions.
• These items hold significant value and can be resold or transported, providing traffickers with the flexibility to move, store, or conceal illicit proceeds.
• Labeling expensive purchases as business expenses or ordinary personal acquisitions helps traffickers mask the true origin of funds derived from forced labor or sexual exploitation.

• Facilitate fictitious or inflated payroll records, disguising illegal proceeds as wages for coerced labor.
• Allow traffickers to underreport wages or create phantom employees, making forced labor appear like legitimate employment expenses.

• Operate under the guise of recruitment or staffing agencies, enabling traffickers to channel exploited laborers and funnel illicit funds through false wage disbursements.
• Minimize verifiable employment records, increasing the difficulty of tracing and prosecuting forced labor revenues.

• Serve as the primary account for shell or front businesses to deposit proceeds from trafficking victims, blending illicit and legitimate income streams.
• Appear as routine commercial activity, reducing AML flags despite underlying forced labor or sexual exploitation revenues.

• Facilitate cross-border layering of illicit proceeds through funnel accounts, obscuring the flow of funds generated by human trafficking.
• Complicate detection by swiftly moving money among jurisdictions, breaking transactional links to exploitation sources.

• Manipulate financial statements to mask revenue generated by forced labor or sexual exploitation as legitimate business transactions.
• Produce false payroll reports and underreported wages, concealing the real extent of trafficking-related income.

• Enable the formation and management of front or shell companies (e.g., massage businesses, bars) to co-mingle illicit proceeds of forced labor or sexual exploitation with lawful revenue.
• Obscure the true owners via complex corporate structures, hindering authorities’ ability to link proceeds to trafficking or exploitation.

Human traffickers directly generate illicit proceeds from forced labor and sexual exploitation. They:

• Exploit victims under coercive conditions, profiting from forced services.
• Channel or conceal these proceeds within the financial system by layering transactions and fabricating corporate records.

Shell or front businesses—such as massage parlors, bars, or recruitment agencies—are used to:

• Commingle illicit proceeds from forced labor or sexual exploitation with legitimate income.
• Generate false payrolls or underreport wages, masking the true source of funds and obscuring connections to trafficked persons.

Financial institutions are unwittingly exploited to:

• Receive deposits and process payments disguised as ordinary commercial transactions.
• Facilitate cross-border transfers that layer proceeds from forced labor or sexual exploitation, hindering detection due to the routine nature of account activity.