TBML004 · TBML

Phantom Shipping

Phantom Shipping settles or invoices a trade for goods that were never actually shipped. There is a payment, an invoice and often a contract, but no genuine movement of goods — the shipping record is missing, forged, or inconsistent with the trade. The trade exists only on paper to justify a cross-border payment.

It is used to:

• Move illicit funds under the appearance of a genuine trade
• Justify a payment with no underlying delivery
• Layer funds through fictitious commerce
• Support related-party value transfer
• Evade controls that assume trade payments follow real shipments

Risk narrative

A customer pays a counterparty for a shipment of goods, but no shipping record supports the movement — there is no bill of lading, no transport evidence, or the shipping document is inconsistent with the trade. The payment is real; the shipment is not. Where the counterparty is a shell and the parties share ownership, the phantom shipment is a channel for value transfer rather than a documentation gap.

Risk indicators

Risk

• Missing Shipment
• No Bill of Lading
• Document Discrepancy
• Payment Without Delivery
• Related Party Trading
• Shell Company Structure

Investigation actions

1. Confirm the goods physically moved; obtain the bill of lading and transport evidence.
2. Reconcile the payment against a genuine shipment.
3. Assess counterparty commercial substance; test for shell indicators.
4. Resolve ownership; test for shared directors / owners and related-party trade.
5. Package evidence for investigator review where the score is High or above.

Use cases

• Trade Based Money Laundering (TBML)
• Fictitious Trade / Layering
• Related Party Value Transfer
• Shell Company Abuse
• Sanctions Evasion
• Capital Flight

Related typologies

Curated from fc-04-tbml-analytics-toolkit/typologies/TBML004/TBML004_Phantom_Shipping.md