Smurfing

Smurfing — also called structuring — is a placement technique in which a large sum of criminal cash is divided among many individuals (the 'smurfs') who each make multiple small cash deposits into different bank accounts. The goal is to keep each transaction below the reporting threshold that would trigger an automatic currency transaction report, making the overall flow of funds invisible to financial regulators.

The term derives from the cartoon characters: many small agents each doing a small piece of the work to achieve a large collective result. In practice, smurf networks may involve dozens of recruited individuals, often low-income people paid a small fee to make deposits on behalf of the criminal organisation. Each smurf typically has no visibility of the overall scheme.

Smurfing is illegal in most jurisdictions regardless of whether any single transaction exceeds the reporting threshold; deliberately structuring transactions to avoid reporting is itself a criminal offence. Anti-money laundering systems look for structuring indicators such as frequent cash deposits just below round-number thresholds, deposits made across multiple branches on the same day, and accounts receiving cash from numerous different depositors.