Layering is one of the classic stages of money laundering, so B is correct. Money laundering generally involves moving illicit proceeds through the financial system to make the funds appear legitimate. The process is commonly described in stages: placement (introducing illegal funds into the financial system), layering (creating complex layers of transactions to obscure the source and ownership), and integration (reintroducing the funds into the economy as seemingly legitimate assets). Layering specifically refers to using multiple transactions—often rapid, complex, and sometimes across different accounts, institutions, or jurisdictions—to break the audit trail. Examples include frequent wire transfers, moving funds through multiple accounts, buying and selling financial instruments to create transactional “noise,” or converting into different instruments to make tracing more difficult.
Choice A, hedging, is a legitimate investment risk management technique used to reduce exposure to market movements. Choice C, front running, is a prohibited trading practice involving trading ahead of customer orders or anticipated market-moving events for personal benefit. Choice D, insider trading, involves trading on material nonpublic information and is an anti-fraud violation. None of these are money laundering activities; they are unrelated concepts that appear elsewhere on the SIE (trading practices and prohibited activities).
On the SIE, AML questions frequently test your ability to recognize the terminology of money laundering and the role of broker-dealer AML programs, suspicious activity reporting, and red flags. “Layering” is a key vocabulary term and is strongly associated with attempts to conceal the origin of funds.
