L. Burke Files, DDP CACM
More than 45 years in finance and cases in over 130 countries, recovering laundered assets across six continents.
Read Burke’s bioA guide for law enforcement, prosecutors and policymakers
How to Launder Money.
Think current AML laws stop crime? Think again. How to Launder Money offers an unapologetic look at how value moves unimpeded by broken regulations.
Written by experts, including an author who went to prison for it, this inside story reveals why current laws fail and provides the blueprint for real change.
The authors have been featured in
The old playbook is broken
It’s time to stop checking boxes and start stopping crime.
Book overview
Behind the veil of global finance.
Money laundering is as old as currency itself, yet the laws meant to stop it are stuck in the past. Modern Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations have done little to curb crime. Instead, they’ve birthed a sophisticated “criminal support” industry while burying honest businesses under a mountain of red tape.
“This doesn’t stop money laundering; it just allows those in the know to charge more.”An industry insider
01
The anatomy of the game
How to Launder Money is an unapologetic, deep-dive dissection of how value moves across the globe today, wholly unimpeded by current compliance infrastructure. It moves past the cliché of “duffel bags of cash” to reveal the modern levers of finance and how they are pulled by those operating in the shadows.
02
From the inside out
This isn’t just theory; it’s an inside story. The book offers a rare peek behind the veil, with insights from those who have actually pulled these levers, including an author who ended up behind bars for it. The criminals already know the rules of the game. This book is for the rest of us: the law enforcement officers, prosecutors and policymakers who want to understand why the current system is failing.
03
A path forward
We don’t just point out the cracks; we provide the blueprint to fix them. The world is borderless, and the old playbook is broken.
Inside
You will learn
- Why current AML laws are counterproductive and how they weigh down legitimate commerce.
- The sophisticated methods used to evade modern detection.
- Concrete recommendations for smarter transaction monitoring to identify actual crimes.
By the numbers
374Pages in the hardcover
10.4Hours on the audiobook
76+Five-star reviews
$5TLaundered every year, by the authors’ estimate
Table of contents
Chapters
From cash and gold to crypto, real estate and necrofinance. Then where US AML law came from, the damage it has done, and what to do instead.
- Introduction
- Money
- Money Laundering: The Movement of Money Tied to a Crime
- Greed Versus Honest Income and Commutative Justice
- The Rinse Club
- Gold is the Gold Standard in Money Laundering
- The Art of the Bribe
- Cash
- Cryptocurrency
- Anonymity
- Entities, Management and Escape
- Real Estate
- Necrofinance
- Where Did US Anti-Money Laundering Laws Come From?
- The Damage Done by AML Laws
- Recommendations
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgements
The authors
Meet the authors.
George Cottrell
Financier and political strategist whose U.S. prison term for wire fraud informs his insights into financial crime.
Read George’s bioIn the news
Latest press
“How To Launder Money” Wins Gold in the Nonfiction Book Awards
How to Launder Money won a Gold award in the Nonfiction Book Awards from the Nonfiction Authors Association. The announcement covers how the book takes apart the mechanics of money laundering and the weak points in anti-money laundering law, and the recommendations it makes for policymakers and law enforcement.
Read the announcement“How To Launder Money” Featured in the Financial Times article
How to Launder Money: A Guide for Law Enforcement, Prosecutors and Policymakers, co-authored by George Cottrell and Lawrence Burke Files, is featured in a Financial Times article by Rachel Rees and Anna Gross, titled “Nigel Farage under Scrutiny over Aide Who Wrote Book on Money-Laundering” (July 6, 2026). Rees and Gross draw on the book, particularly its chapter “The Art of the Bribe,” to illustrate how small, informal gifts can be used to influence politicians while evading disclosure requirements, quoting the authors’ description of corruption as “a bit like fiscal heroin.” The article uses Cottrell’s own guide as a lens through which to examine undeclared gifts he provided to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, treating the book’s insider account of bribery and money-laundering techniques as directly relevant to assessing the political relationship it describes.
Read the article“How To Launder Money” Featured in the London Review of Books
How to Launder Money, co-authored by George Cottrell and Lawrence Burke Files, is featured in a 4,000-word essay by John Lanchester in the London Review of Books (Vol. 48, No. 9), titled “Squillions.” Lanchester describes Cottrell and Files as “expert witnesses” to the global scale of financial crime, drawing on the book throughout to illustrate how money laundering, which the authors estimate at $5 trillion annually, operates largely invisible to the regulatory apparatus designed to stop it.
Read the articleQuestions
About the book
01What is How to Launder Money about?
It is a deep-dive dissection of how value moves across the globe today, wholly unimpeded by current compliance infrastructure, and why modern Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations fail to curb crime. It closes with concrete recommendations for smarter transaction monitoring that identifies actual crime.
02Who wrote the book?
George Cottrell, a British financier whose U.S. prison term for wire fraud informs his insights into financial crime, and L. Burke Files, an international financial investigator with over 45 years of experience across more than 130 countries.
03Who is it for?
Law enforcement officers, prosecutors and policymakers who want to understand why the current system is failing. The criminals already know the rules of the game. This book is for the rest of us.
04What format is it available in?
Hardcover (374 pages, ISBN 9781837360406, Biteback Publishing) and audiobook (about 10.4 hours), available from the retailers listed below.