A Study of Factors Affecting Iran’s Trade Base Money Laundering (TBML): (Ferwerda Gravity Model Application)

Money laundering is an illegal practice that legitimizes the income from illegal activities during a legitimate process.Trade-based money laundering (TBML) as one of the newest and most complicated types of money laundering has negative effects on economic, social and political aspect of a society.The most important objective of the present study is to investigate the effect of various factors on trade based money laundering in Iran using the Ferwerda Gravity model.For this purpose the effective factors on trade base money laundering between iran and some selected trade partners are investigated by the use of a random effect model during the period 1999-2012. The results indicate that a great significant part of the trade based money laundering flow between Iran and selected trade partners can be explained by the the Ferwerda Gravity model. Accordingly, gorss doimestic product(GDP), trade volume, geographical, cultural, population and attractiveness variables have a significant effect on the amount of trade based money laundering in Iran.This means that with the increase in trade flow, money laundering opportunities resulted from the trade channel, that is hidden in it, will also increase. These results can be used by policy makers for designing policies to combat money laundering particularly coming from trade channel.