Top 10 Most Notorious Real-Life Money Laundering Schemes

#10: Paul Manafort

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Paul Manafort served as the chairman for Donald Trump's 2016 Presidential Campaign, a job he held from June to August of that year. The lobbyist had plenty of experience in the field prior to serving Trump, having worked with several other Presidents in the past, including Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. However, his connections didn't save him from being tried for tax evasion, bank fraud, witness tampering, money laundering, and other charges in 2018. He wound up admitting to most of the charges and was found guilty on eight, including two for bank fraud and another for failing to disclose a foreign bank account. Nonetheless, he was pardoned by President Trump on December 23rd, 2020.

The HSBC Bank is one of the largest in the UK, doing business with customers big and small. Unfortunately, the bank made headlines in 2012 when the United States accused HSBC of failing to properly follow standard anti-money laundering policies. The accusations went on to claim that these failures led to over eight hundred million dollars being laundered through American channels for narcotics cartels. The HSBC Bank wound up paying a fine of almost two billion dollars. It was not prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney General, however, after the UK warned that the indictment could result in serious economic instability.

The discussion surrounding digital currency has definitely entered the mainstream in recent years, but Liberty Reserve was working in the domain all the way back in 2006. Based in Costa Rica, Liberty Reserve grew to have over one million users. It operated without a license, and made little to no effort when it came to security - which for some users, was one of the biggest draws. Ultimately, Liberty Reserve was seized by the U.S. Government in 2013 and indicted under the Patriot Act for allegedly laundering over six billion dollars within the criminal underworld.

The investigation behind our next entry was very clear with its findings: the Bank of Credit and Commerce International intentionally tried to steer clear of any financial regulation during its existence from 1972 to 1991. The private bank serviced some of the world's most notorious leaders, including Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega, not to mention holding accounts for drug traffickers like the Medellin Cartel. Even American organizations like the CIA and National Security Council utilized BCCI, with the latter reportedly using the bank to move around money during the Iran-Contra scandal. Its branches were raided and locked down in 1991, and a lawsuit against the bank was ultimately finalized in 1998.

Whoever says "crime doesn't pay" never heard of Meyer Lansky. Lansky was an infamous member of the American Jewish Mob, and deeply connected with the Italian mafia. His early years were spent rubbing elbows with some of the most notorious mobsters of the day, including Lucky Luciano and childhood friend Bugsy Siegel, while pioneering one of the most common money laundering practices in the world: Swiss bank accounts. Lansky laundered money through a number of shell companies during his life, and was never caught or tried for these crimes. The biggest thing the authorities ever nabbed Lansky for? Illegal gambling.

#5: Al Capone

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The life of Al Capone was many things, but at the very heart of his dark story lurks this one very important life lesson: you can't fool the IRS. Well, unless you’re a private equity firm, in which case you can basically do whatever you want. After an infamous and high profile career in organized crime, Capone’s eventual downfall was tax evasion. Capone was very careful with his financial dealings, utilizing Western Union to move small amounts of money around in a process known as "structuring." The popularization of the term "money laundering" is largely thanks to gangsters like Capone, who favored using a chain of Laundromats to "clean" his illegally gotten gains.

You'd be forgiven for not being too familiar with the history of Nauru, as this republic stands behind Vatican City and Monaco as the third smallest country in the world. Size isn't everything, however, as proven by the notorious Nauru money laundering scheme. The country and its banks were used as an offshore tax shelter for the Russian mafia, with groups reportedly laundering over seventy billion dollars during the 1990s. Suspicion and scrutiny continued into the 2000s, and Nauru and Russia have remained close allies to this day.

In the late 2010s, investigations into the Estonian branch of Denmark-based Danske Bank exposed one of the largest money laundering operations in history. Between 2007 and 2015, the branch accepted a staggering two hundred billions euros in suspicious transactions, many from non-residents and shell companies. A lot of the incoming funds came from Russia. Despite reports from a whistleblower and the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority, Danske Bank turned a blind eye, until it all hit the fan in 2018 and ten employees were arrested. Danske Bank CEO Thomas Borgen resigned, branch manager Aivar Rehe is believed to have taken his own life, and the branch was closed in 2019.

Standard Chartered has its headquarters in London, but its international operations see it working in over 70 countries, and its importance can’t be overstated when it comes to the global economy. This doesn’t mean that Standard Chartered Bank is immune to controversy, however. In 2019, the corporation paid out a fine to the tune of 1.1 billion dollars to the UK and US for poor money laundering controls, and ignoring international sanctions against countries like Iran, Syria and Myanmar. It was later charged again in 2021 by the Reserve Bank of India for delays in reporting fraudulent behavior.

A recurring theme in these stories is that people in charge like to ignore warnings and suspicious activity when money is flowing in. That’s just what happened at Wachovia, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 2008, the bank got in hot water when it was revealed that companies called "casas de cambio'' had used their services to launder money for Mexican and Columbian drug cartels. And not just a few million, but an astonishing $378.4 billion. To get that deep in, senior management had to ignore warnings from their own anti-money laundering experts that they were, you know, probably laundering money. Wachovia eventually paid the U.S. Treasury a $50 million fine, and was forced to give up $110 million in profit.