@Ghostwoods @cstross So there's really two questions here; how do you launder the money within China and how do you get it out of China? The answer to the first is that you turn it from cash to real estate - which is one reason of several housing prices are crazy (inner Beijing is 2xManhattan)
@Ghostwoods @cstross As for getting it out of China, the answer is often just literally stuffing mules with cash. Airports started doing random checks on people of Chinese ethnicity as a result (this happened to friends of mine). Hong Kong used to be the usual route.
@Ghostwoods @cstross For larger sums, several options. Joint partnerships and foreign ventures, laundering your own money through a corporate front - which is why there was a big crackdown on them a couple of years ago after years of promotion as part of 'going abroad'
@Ghostwoods @cstross Acquiring a foreigner and running sums through his name is also common. There's a prominent China shill whose real job is money laundering for the famously corrupt elite clan he married into, for instance.
@Ghostwoods @cstross But also just getting people to put their names on very large bank transfers or act as bagmen. Art is a very popular way to launder money too - if you look at art firms' webpages, they'll even hint at this (look for mention of 'flexibility' or 'jurisdictions')
@Ghostwoods @cstross very little goes through Russia that I'm aware of, it goes China->HK->West. Surprising amount to Canada and Australia because of large diaspora. Probably a lot through Thailand and Malaysia at some point.
@Ghostwoods @cstross I'd guess that much more stays within China than within Russia, though, both because the Chinese elite is less connected to the West and because the controls are tighter. But real estate gives you the best clues as to where it does go.
@Ghostwoods @cstross Look at the Vancouver housing market, for instance, and the impact of mainland money there. (And remember that *all* money earned in the mainland is dirty somehow, almost inescapably.)
@Ghostwoods @cstross Same with Sydney. In China itself, consider that one of the main Beijing property developers used to explicitly target illegal Shanxi coal mine owners. It's a contributor to the amazingly low occupancy rates (c.40%) in the center of cities - most of these are assets, not homes.
@Ghostwoods @cstross Ultimately of course every control can be evaded with strong enough CPC connections. Worth looking at Varese's MAFIAS ON THE MOVE where he found that HK organized crime failed to move into mainland in 1990s because CPC already filled the same role.
