They are also required to adopt measures to identify and freeze or confiscate proceeds from the sale of illicit drugs and promote international cooperation against money laundering. Placement , the initial entry of funds into the financial system, serves the purpose of relieving the holder of large amounts of actual cash and positioning these funds in the financial system for the next stage. Placement is the most vulnerable stage of the process, as the chance of discovery of the illicit origin of the money is greatest at the beginning. Layering , the next stage, describes a series of transactions designed to conceal the money s origin. At this level, money is often sent from one country to another and then broken up into a variety of investments, which are moved frequently to evade detection.
Integration is the final stage.
In this stage, the funds have been fully assimilated into the legal economy, where they can be used for any purpose. A number of countries have instituted a set of control measures, including the requirement for financial institutions to disclose suspicious operations, in order to detect and trace financial operations on dirty money. Hence, global agreement and cooperation are essential to prevent launderers from moving their business to unregulated countries and thus evading prosecution. The Special Session will consider further measures to improve international cooperation and action against money laundering. A draft political declaration calls for the General Assembly to condemn the laundering of money derived from illicit drug trafficking and other related crimes and the use of countries financial systems for that purpose.