There are typically three stages involved with money laundering, placement, layering, and integration. The purpose of the first step of placement is to turn the dirty money into some other asset, in other words, to place it somewhere in the economic system. This will often involve buying assets that can be acquired for cash, such as used cars, real estate. In some countries, life insurance policies where the buyer pays an upfront premium in cash, or gaming chips. By turning the dirty money into something else, the process of distancing it from its source has begun. Next comes the layering stage. The purpose of this step is to disguise the dirty money, the layers on numerous transactions without any commercial purpose. For example, wash trades where a trade simultaneously buys and sells the same security. The real purpose of layering transactions is to create a smoke screen, obscuring the source of funds as much as possible. The third step is integration. The purpose is to get the placed and layered money into the financial system, often to deposit it in a bank account without creating any suspicion. By this stage, the hope is that it looks like legitimately earned money, which has not come from criminal activity. However, it's worth noting that money laundering doesn't always have to involve all three steps. Most often there are three, but an alternative method could be to recruit a mule. Typically, someone who needs some extra income and has time to spare, such as a retiree or a student. The mule has to agree to bank the cash in their account and to remit it to third party accounts in exchange for a commissional fee. Mules may or may not know that by helping dirty money wash through their bank accounts, they too are money launderers.