Financial Transparency Coalition

Leo Getz (played by Joe Pesci) explains in Lethal Weapon 2 how he managed to launder 500 million dollars,

Leo’s money laundering scheme was possible thanks to a “dummy finance company”, which these days would probably be created in Delaware, online, in about thirty minutes. His dummy corporation allowed him to hide dirty money because he did not have to declare a beneficial owner. Otherwise, Leo’s activities would be transparent, and law enforcement would arrest him.

While the action and violence in a movie like Lethal Weapon 2 may be absurd, Leo Getz’s half-billion dollar money laundering ring is not so absurd. At GFI, we know that 900 billion dollars of illicit money is moved every year. We know that corrupt government officials and drug dealers, like the South Africans Leo was working with, make up a sizable portion of that 900 billion. We also know that the process Leo describes is being repeated electronically thousands of times every day, having been made much easier by technology.