Loan-back

It was Lansky who pioneered the “loan-back” technique. Money was moved in the form of cash, traveller's cheques, or bearer bonds for deposit in numbered Swiss accounts. The money then returned home in the form of "loans" to the person who had initiated the cycle, who would replay the loan with interest, deducting the interest from his taxable income as a business expense. Multinational corporations continue to use a variant of this scheme to reduce their tax obligations.

The loan-back scheme involves an offshore shell company that receives illegally obtained money through the placement mechanism. The owner of the illegal money goes to an offshore bank of which he is the owner or in which he has a criminal ally and applies for a loan for his front company. The offshore shell is then transfers the illegal monies through layers to the offshore bank, which will, after receipt, approve the loan and transmit it to the front company. The interest payments incurred on the loan may also be tax deductible on the level of the front company.

He told them about the great secrecy havens – Switzerland, the Netherlands Antilles, the Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein – about dummy corporations and the byzantine loan-back systems which criminals had devised to cover their tracks.