Look, hey, this is a squeaky clean, highly profitable, at least potentially, local institution.

This is a scene from season 3 of Breaking Bad.

Saul Goodman, a crooked lawyer, is meeting up with his drug dealer client, Jesse Pinkman.

And he's trying to explain why a criminal should own a nail salon.

I take your dirty money and I slip it into the salon's nice clean cash flow.

The revenues from the salon go to the owner. That's you. Your

filthy drug money has been transformed into nice clean taxable income brought to you

by a savvy investment in a thriving business.

So you want me to buy this place so I can pay taxes?

This is a classic form of money laundering and schemes like this aren't just

Hollywood fiction. The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that

laundered money makes up 2 to 5% of the global GDP.

That's trillions of US dollars every year.

But as we've moved toward a cashless economy, today's criminals are ditching the nail

salons and finding new ways to hide their money.

I really wish money complicated than that.

For the Freakinomix Radio Network,

this is the economics of everyday things.

I'm Zachary Krocket.

Today, money laundering.

In the simplest terms, money laundering

is the act of moving money to obscure the proceeds of a crime.

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