Money Laundering Whistleblower Lawyer
Money laundering is a serious financial crime and often indicates that further fraud is taking place. If you have knowledge of this crime taking place within the financial industry, a money laundering whistleblower lawyer can help you submit your information to the SEC.
While most people are familiar with the term “money laundering,” many don’t really fully understand what it is—other than that it’s illegal. However, if you are involved in the financial industry and encounter money laundering, you could receive a large financial reward for reporting it to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
This makes it crucial to know how to recognize money laundering and to have an experienced money laundering whistleblower lawyer verify your information before submitting a tip to the SEC. Meissner Associates has in-depth and extensive experience reporting securities fraud to the SEC, and we can help you determine if you’ve encountered money laundering and what your next step should be.
What Is Money Laundering?
Put broadly, money laundering is the act of making illegally acquired money appear to be legitimately earned. The money to be laundered can be acquired through any number of illegal methods, but the SEC is going to primarily be interested in money laundering that involves securities violations. Insider trading and embezzlement are two commonly seen examples that often involve money laundering.
Money laundering is usually a three-step process:
- Introducing the illegally acquired money back into the marketplace or financial industry through some means
- Running the money through financial transactions meant to hide the money’s original source and often involving shell companies and trusts
- Collecting “profits” from the camouflaging transactions
For example, a corporate embezzler might employ a money laundering scheme in order to “clean” the embezzled funds. This could be done relatively easily through the use of shell companies. A shell company can often be set up so that owner of the company is not publicly known, so the “dirty” money can be introduced to the market at this point without implicating the embezzler, who then launders the money through several more shell companies in order to further obscure where the money came from.
Why Report Money Laundering to the SEC?
Aside from reporting criminal activity, there are a number of incentives for reporting money laundering that would be of interest to the SEC. Primarily, if your money laundering tip results in sanctions in excess of $1,000,000, you could stand to receive between 10 and 30 percent of the money collected as a reward.
The longer you wait, the more you risk receiving a lower percentage or having another whistleblower beat you to the tip submission. This makes it essential to contact a money laundering whistleblower lawyer as soon as you realize you could have relevant information.
Connect with a Whistleblower Lawyer
The SEC recently announced that they are focusing on cracking down on money laundering, especially when it involves broker-dealers. This makes it even more likely that they will act on your information if it is accurate and the crime involves large enough amounts of money.
Meissner Associates can help you present your tip in the most compelling way possible. We’ve been representing whistleblowers since 2001, and we can help you bring your information to light while staying legally protected. For a free and confidential tip evaluation performed by an experienced money laundering whistleblower lawyer, just call 1-866-764-3100 or submit your information through the form below.