what is a smurf 
a smurf is a colloquial term for a money launderer who seeks to evade scrutiny from government agencies by breaking up large transactions into a set of smaller transactions that are each below the reporting threshold smurfing is an illegal activity that can have serious consequences current bank regulations require banks or other financial institutions to report cash transactions exceeding 10 000 or any others they deem suspicious on a suspicious activity report sar athima tongloom getty imagesunderstanding smurfingsmurfing involves depositing illegally gained money into multiple bank accounts for under the radar transfer in the near future to prevent money laundering by criminals involved in illegal activities such as drugs and extortion countries such as the united states and canada require a currency transaction report to be filed by a financial institution handling any transaction exceeding 10 000 in cash to evade these reporting requirements criminal groups might attempt to cover their tracks by splitting their cash into multiple smaller deposits and dividing them between a number of geographically dispersed accounts this is a form of structuring transactions to avoid regulatory detection shortly after the 9 11 terrorist attacks the usa patriot act expanded anti money laundering measures by allowing investigative tools designed for organized crime and drug trafficking prevention to be used in terrorist investigations and making reporting of transactions of 10 000 or more mandatory 