洗錢（Money Laundering）是指將違法所得及其產生的收益，通過各種手段掩飾、隱瞞其來源和性質，使其在形式上合法化的行為。

The Study Guide to P7 covers the issue of money laundering separately to that of laws and regulations in A2(a) to (h). ACCA’s Code of Ethics and Conduct defines ‘money laundering’ as:

‘...the process by which criminals attempt to conceal the true origin and ownership of the proceeds of their criminal activity, allowing them to maintain control over the proceeds and, ultimately, providing a legitimate cover for their sources of income.’

Auditors need to be particularly careful where money laundering issues are concerned – especially for a business that is predominantly cash-based because the scope for money laundering in such businesses is wide. There are usually three stages in money laundering:

Placement – which is the introduction or ‘placement’ of illegal funds into a financial system.

Layering – which is where the money is passed through a large number of transactions. This is done so that it makes it difficult to trace the money to its original source.

Integration – which is where the ‘dirty’ money becomes ‘clean’ as it passes back into a legitimate economy.

Money laundering offences can include:

concealing criminal property

acquiring, using or possessing criminal property

becoming involved in arrangement which is known, or suspected, of facilitating the acquisition of criminal property.

There are many countries in which money laundering is a criminal offence and, where an accountant or an auditor discovers a situation which may give rise to money laundering, the accountant or auditor must report such suspicions to a ‘money laundering reporting officer’ (MLRO) whose responsibility it is to report such suspicions to an enforcement agency (in the UK, this enforcement agency is the National Crime Agency (NCA)).

It is an offence to fail to report suspicions of money laundering to NCA or the MLRO as soon as practicable, and it is also an offence if the MLRO fails to pass on a report to the NCA. Where the entity is actively involved in money laundering, the signs are likely to be similar to those where there is a risk of fraud, and can include:

complex corporate structure where complexity does not seem to be warranted

transactions not in the ordinary course of business

many large cash transactions when not expected

transactions where there is a lack of information or explanations, or where explanations are unsatisfactory, or

transactions with little commercial logic taking place in the normal course of business.