Offshore companies play a substantial role in the laundering of dirty money, especially in bigger cases. This article reflects on the definition of offshore companies and analyses several cases of money laundering through these often complicated financial business structures. The lack of knowledge on offshore money laundering practices hampers criminal investigation worldwide. Improving the registration of cases and sharing knowledge internationally would help to develop better prevention measures and to detect money laundering through offshore companies. The author also provides a list of risk indicators signalizing possible abuse of offshore companies.

In this article, which serves as an introduction, the authors take a closer look at theoretical definitions as well as empirical manifestations of money laundering. They discuss the judicial definition and the often used theoretical distinction between ‘three stages’ of money laundering. Furthermore, the authors provide the reader with a quick overview of several forms of money laundering. This overview is based on actual criminal investigations. It covers the transfer of cash money and ‘concealed consumption’, both of which are frequently overlooked by authors who use the three stages model. Also ‘traditional’ forms of money laundering such as loan backs, abuse of legal trade, feigning gambling profit, structuring of real estate deals and ‘new’ forms, i.e. the use of bitcoins, are dealt with.