Which money laundering technique involves moving funds through multiple accounts to obscure origin?

• A. Stacking
• B. Integration
• C. Layering
• D. Structuring

Answer: (C)

Layering is the money-laundering step that hides where money came from by moving it through a chain of many accounts, banks, and sometimes countries. The idea is to create a tangled trail that’s hard to follow, so investigators can’t easily connect the funds back to the original illicit activity. In practice, funds might be shuffled from one account to another across different institutions, pass through shell companies, transverse borders, and be converted into different assets. Each move adds another layer to the trail, increasing the difficulty of tracing the money to its source.

Structuring focuses on depositing money in small amounts to avoid reporting requirements, not on weaving a multi-account path. Integration is about bringing the funds back into the legitimate economy in a way that looks normal, not about obscuring their origin through a network of accounts.