You wouldn't think that serious organized crime would involve accountants, lawyers, and real estate agents. But all three industries are now being targeted by the government in a bid to stamp out money laundering in Australia.
So, what is money laundering?
Head of Financial Crime Studies at Charles Sturt University, Jamie Ferrill said it was a way to make illicit money legitimate.
When you profit from crime, it's hard to spend it just like that.
Although buying groceries with cash won't surprise you, when you have millions of dollars, you can't go out and use them freely.
Dr Ferrill said criminals had systems in place to try to make dirty money look legitimate.
It could be through any number of mechanisms, through the creation of a number of different bank accounts, it could be through a trust account, a shell company could be used to buy real estate, luxury goods, anything you could start using that money to, again, obscure where it came from.Dr Jamie Ferrill is the Head of Financial Crime Studies at Charles Sturt University
The businesses targeted in this proposal are generally smaller businesses than banks or casinos, with concerns from the industry about this then being created.
AUSTRAC [[Australian Transaction Reporting and Analysis Centre]] Chief Executive Brendan Thomas said they wanted to work with the corporate world to do the right thing.
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