What skill covers money laundering?

[PlusSixPelican]

Let's say I wanted a character who's good at washing moneys. What skill would I use for that, exactly?

(Note, I don't want to launder money IRL, but as a character.)

[Spuddles]

Profession.

[WarKitty]

If you want a single skill, probably profession. Knowledge (local) would be useful to find the best places to dispose of ill-gotten gains. Diplomacy and bluff, obviously, for staying out of trouble.

How exactly would you be setting up business? In a D&D world I'd imagine posing as a merchant might be the easiest, using bad money to buy trade goods (or just overreporting your profits).

[Crake]

Personally, something like that I would require the character to perform various different skill checks depending on circumstances, including bluff, diplomacy, gather information, and maybe even the occasional intimidate.

[Gavinfoxx]

Profession (White Collar Criminal)
Knowledge Local
Appraise
Gather Information
Bluff

[Jack_Simth]

Let's say I wanted a character who's good at washing moneys. What skill would I use for that, exactly?

(Note, I don't want to launder money IRL, but as a character.)
What gaming system and what setting? Most forms of money laundering are essentially coming up with an explanation for why a particular transaction took place that is acceptable to those in charge - and as such, it only matters when there's tracking on the finances. If you don't have a world with a system of banks and transaction records, it's largely irrelevant (so a standard Grayhawk? Nobody bothers. Eberron? Yeah, the underworld needs their laundry done).

So...
Craft(Art Objects) - or some other thing where the value may not be readily established.
Appraise
Bluff
Sense Motive

You buy & sell art. You need to pay someone for services rendered? You buy an art object from them. You need to collect a payment? You sell them an art object. Ideally, this is done as a rigged auction or some such. Sense Motive is for ferreting out people trying to disrupt your 'business' (law enforcement personnel, competitors, and so on), Bluff is for distracting anyone who sees what's going on, Craft(Art Objects) is for making the stuff that goes back and forth, Appraise is so you know what things are really worth.

[Slipperychicken]

Seconding Profession.

If you'd rather not use a Profession skill, then Forgery, Bluff, and Diplomacy should do nicely.

[ericgrau]

bluff, forgery, gather information, knowledge (local)
Many employees (leadership) with hide, move silently, bluff, disguise, forgery, sense motive. Probably a goldsmith too.

In D&D you must:
1. Obtain money illegally.
2. Send that money somewhere secret. You would probably melt it down and reforge it there as well.
3. Get those funds back into your organization without others tracing where it came from. Buy items including weapons with it without alerting suspicion. Alternatively buy those things elsewhere and smuggle those things into town unnoticed.

Mostly it's moving wealth past authorities unnoticed. Either smuggling it or faking some paperwork. At high level you could just teleport it back and forth to your secret location though and skip steps 1 & 2.

[Anderlith]

Profession: Maid/Servant, or maybe just Washer

Idk why it needs a skill, just get a bucket & some water. Are you trying to compare quality of the cleaning?:smallbiggrin:

[Spuddles]

bluff, forgery, gather information, knowledge (local)
Many employees (leadership) with hide, move silently, bluff, disguise, forgery, sense motive. Probably a goldsmith too.

In D&D you must:
1. Obtain money illegally.
2. Send that money somewhere secret. You would probably melt it down and reforge it there as well.
3. Get those funds back into your organization without others tracing where it came from. Buy items including weapons with it without alerting suspicion. Alternatively buy those things elsewhere and smuggle those things into town unnoticed.

Mostly it's moving wealth past authorities unnoticed. Either smuggling it or faking some paperwork. At high level you could just teleport it back and forth to your secret location though and skip steps 1 & 2.

Or just pick up profession: banking and do it all legitimately.

[Unusual Muse]

It seems like it would be more of a set of skills, and possibly different ones each time you want to do it, depending on who/where/what... almost like a mini-adventure in itself. I mean, if you want to do it with one roll of a d20, you can do that with Profession or maybe Craft... but then, that's kinda boring, isn't it? I would make it an encounter/adventure with a series of rolls of different skills (Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Gather Info, Sleight of Hand, etc.), combined with circumstantial ability checks (INT and WIS mainly), and maybe even initiative checks. You can also just assign percentages to things, too... make up some old-school d% tables and roll yourself a pair of ten-siders! :smallsmile:

[Spuddles]

It seems like it would be more of a set of skills, and possibly different ones each time you want to do it, depending on who/where/what... almost like a mini-adventure in itself. I mean, if you want to do it with one roll of a d20, you can do that with Profession or maybe Craft... but then, that's kinda boring, isn't it? I would make it an encounter/adventure with a series of rolls of different skills (Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Gather Info, Sleight of Hand, etc.), combined with circumstantial ability checks (INT and WIS mainly), and maybe even initiative checks. You can also just assign percentages to things, too... make up some old-school d% tables and roll yourself a pair of ten-siders! :smallsmile:

But why would you go that sort of length? Money laundering is super boring stuff. If you have a society with a tax system sophisticated enough to make money laundering necessary to hide cash, then you're likewise going to have the financial instruments to make money laundering nothing more than shuffling numbers on a ledger.

The only time a bluff or intimidate check is going to come up is if a) you're using force to take over a front company or b) the Dragon Revenue Service swings by for a chat.

I suppose forgery checks could be used.

But sleight of hand? Initiative? What, exactly, do you think money laundering involves? An encounter with a dire washing machine?

[Arcanist]

Profession: Gambling

Not even joking, running a Casino or Gambling is the best way to launder thousands of thousands of stolen currency without raising a single question.

[silverwolfer]

Well depends

Profession Gambling

Few rogue skills

Druid for control weather and throws a couple feather tokens in the dryer as the wind makes it spin around.

should do the trick

[dungeonnerd]

Several plans come to mind, three revolve around two skills - Craft (item) and Profession (Merchant). Barter and Knoweledge (Local) could help too, but are not required if you're in good standing with your guild.

This takes a couple levels in wizard (well, the first two do). Lets assume, for a moment, rogue10/wizard10 for sake of simplicity (and the Teleport spell).

1) Get your ill-gotten booty by whatever means necessary.
2) Open a magic-mart.
3) Use ill-gotten booty to purchase spell components. you're a wizard, this isn't suspicious.
4) Craft magic arms and armor, weapons, rings, etc, using the GP-per-XP buyoff rules (which, according to the RAW, just makes the money go poof).
5) Sell said items at profit (and a considerable one at that). Mix a liberal amount of the gains into the list by creating "false sales". Laundered money, no tracing - especially if you sell to adventurers, who have a very small life expectancy. "Olaf the Barbarian" just "bought" a +3 Greataxe? Too bad he "died" in that dungeon...

Now, you said money laundering. Fencing objects is harder - for that, still assuming the rogue/wiz:

1) Liberate items.
2) Teleport to another city/country (teleportation circles and rituals and the like)
3) Sell items to a random place.
4) Teleport back. Continue at step 2 of previous plan.

For famous objects, then you'll need some contacts, which is where Know(local) comes into play. My favorite:

1) Obtain your property that other people are holding for you.
2) Have contact (Thieves guild, or a high-society type that's E or LE) arrange a secret auction for 10% of the take.
3) Have contact hold auction (contact, of course, doesn't know your name/face. Alter self is good for this.)
4) Profit.
5) Live like a king. Buy a small country. Or, to avoid suspicion, start at step 2 of first plan.

And, perhaps the easiest plan:

1) Become an adventurer. Seriously, noone questions how the mighty dungeon delvers came buy a **** ton of money and art. Use whatever plan you want to convert boot to GP, and just mix it in with your treasure from a dungeon run. Bonus thoughts - hire bards to sing songs of your deeds. This will insure you get bigger contracts for richer dungeons, which allows you to launder larger sums.

[Ashtagon]

Let's say I wanted a character who's good at washing moneys. What skill would I use for that, exactly?

(Note, I don't want to launder money IRL, but as a character.)

Profession or Knowledge (business) or somesuch.

It's basically about manipulating business records to hide where the money came from. In order to manipulate such records, you need to know how to make the records correctly in the first place.

Most D&D settings don't have such reporting systems in place though. Such reporting normally takes place in societies that tax a business based on profits, instead of, say, poll taxes, land taxes, tollgate taxes, and the like. They also tend to be in societies that have moved away from the gold/silver/precious metal standard.

Currency forgery would rely on some kind of Craft (art) skill. In my homebrew system, it'd be Artist (3d) and Craft (metal) for coins. Personal cheques (US: checks) would be Artist (2d) and Knowledge (business) (because the medieval personal cheques system were more like letter-writing than modern-day cheques), and would suffer substantial penalties if not familiar with the supposed author's writing style.

Forging modern banknotes in a game would require Artist (2d), and would suffer even more severe penalties if you don't have the correct tools. Modern cheques incorporate serial numbers and similar security features, making it trivially easy to verfiy them after they have been passed off.

Passing forged money off as genuine is 10 (if you don't know your money) or Bluff (if you know your money is false) vs. Knowledge (business). The receiving merchant gets a bonus on his check that depends on how badly the original crafting check failed by.

[Sziget Pengék]

Forgery. To make the reforged coins look legit.

Craft(Currency). To make coins with a foreign stamp.

Profession(Smelter/Minter). To melt down dirty coins, to be recast in a different sort of currency(to hide their origins).

Profession(merchant). To have that money moved into circulation through trade goods.

[AlchemicalMyst]

Well, if you are using the standard gold system the only way possible is to make fake coins. As in melt them down, mix in a lot of copper/silver, make it look like pure gold/platinum and reforge it. Forgery skill won't come into play at all.

If you're talking about making the fake currency without magic? Then any craft relating to metal should really cover it.

If you are trying to get rid of the fake coins really fast? It's as simple as going to the market and buying a lot of trade items such as gems and jewelry. Buy 500gp worth of gems from various stores using currency really only worth 400gp, sell the goods back to other vendors, profit.

if you must roll then simply:
• Craft (Currency/Blacksmithing/Jewelry): Melt down gold and silver. Make gold coins spliced with silver.
• Profession (Merchant/Trader): Buy goods with fake currency, sell goods for real currency.
• Profit.

OR

• Craft (Blacksmithing/Jewelry): Melt down gold and silver. Make Jewelry, statues, etc. Claim 100% gold but put in silver/copper core.
• Profession (Merchant/Trader): Sell fake goods.
• Profit.

[Unusual Muse]

Become an adventurer. Seriously, noone questions how the mighty dungeon delvers came buy a **** ton of money and art.

This raises a good point. Why does your character even *need* to launder money?

What are the circumstances? Suggestions would be different depending on whether you're trying to hide your ill-gotten booty from the local tax collector who comes through the outlying villages once a year, or if you're part of a Byzantine bureaucracy where every copper piece is scrutinized by your superiors.

[dungeonnerd]

Well, if you are using the standard gold system the only way possible is to make fake coins. As in melt them down, mix in a lot of copper/silver, make it look like pure gold/platinum and reforge it. Forgery skill won't come into play at all.

If you're talking about making the fake currency without magic? Then any craft relating to metal should really cover it.

If you are trying to get rid of the fake coins really fast? It's as simple as going to the market and buying a lot of trade items such as gems and jewelry. Buy 500gp worth of gems from various stores using currency really only worth 400gp, sell the goods back to other vendors, profit.

Money laundering =/= making fake coins (or coins that are made of impure metals).

Money laundering is taking ill-gotten gains and making it look like they were obtained legally, usually done by doctoring books somewhere so that the income discrepency is not blatantly obvious.

[awa]

in a dnd world where millions of gold coins are just sitting around in caves and such guarded by monsters im not certain it would even be possible for a government to keep track of it.

and if you really needed to get rid of the money just melt them down into gold bricks

[AlchemicalMyst]

Money laundering =/= making fake coins (or coins that are made of impure metals).

Money laundering is taking ill-gotten gains and making it look like they were obtained legally, usually done by doctoring books somewhere so that the income discrepency is not blatantly obvious.

Yes I am aware. However in D&D there is really no possible way any power could determine if money was from an illegal source. If in a campaign where it really matters such as running a legitimate business as a campaign, why anyone would run such a campaign using D&D system is beyond me, then it's as simple as Forgery to change books, end of story.

However if you are trying to hide the fact that you just got 1000gp from those bandits who just robbed the local Lord, you would melt the coins down so they can't be traced by the coins' symbol.

I assumed that if someone was asking about money laundering in a D20 system they were asking about laundering money that they themselves obtained illicitly and further assumed that the only reason to launder said money would be because they were counterfeit. Which seems I am not alone in assuming.


in a dnd world where millions of gold coins are just sitting around in caves and such guarded by monsters im not certain it would even be possible for a government to keep track of it.

and if you really needed to get rid of the money just melt them down into gold bricks

My thoughts exactly.

[Gildedragon]

UMD to 'clean' the money with Prestidigitation.
Elsehow Forgery or Profession seems like the best bet

[Coidzor]

But sleight of hand? Initiative? What, exactly, do you think money laundering involves? An encounter with a dire washing machine?

That does sound like it'd be more interesting, certainly. :smallamused:

[Arcanist]

But sleight of hand? Initiative? What, exactly, do you think money laundering involves? An encounter with a dire washing machine?

"The Laundromat of Horror" :smallbiggrin:

[HunterOfJello]

What type of currency? Is it made of paper or rare metals? What magical means are being used to scrutinize the work?


Forgery + being a Wizard using something like Fabricate would do the trick nicely for the most part.

[Coidzor]

"The Laundromat of Horror" :smallbiggrin:

Yes! This needs to be a thing. :smallbiggrin:


Forgery + being a Wizard using something like Fabricate would do the trick nicely for the most part.

Come to think of it, Fabricate and/or being an artificer would probably take care of it nicely.

[AlchemicalMyst]

"The Laundromat of Horror" :smallbiggrin:

Mixing your whites and colors without mercy!

[Spuddles]

I had to launder gems once, as a low level beguiler. An Azer hired us to go loot an Athach's gem horde, so we did. Then using glibness and a very high roll (total in the 50s), I informed the Azer that there were fewer gems than expected.

We walked away with 50,000gp in gems. Not wanting to get divined on, I used a handul of different disguises to buy gold and art in a couple different cities, making sure to never spend more than 10,000 in one place, to never flaunt it or wow shopkeeps. I always made sure that there were at least two transactions and two disguises between me and my illgotten gems at all times.

50k cash at level 6 split 3 ways was awesome. That was such a good campaign.


Yes! This needs to be a thing. :smallbiggrin:



Come to think of it, Fabricate and/or being an artificer would probably take care of it nicely.

Just grind it up and turn it into magical items.