MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow imagined how she would launder $10 million out of Russia if she were a criminal instead of a broadcaster.

“The first important thing to know about Deutsche Bank in this story, it’s up to its German neck in Russian money laundering,” Maddow noted.

“I’m a Russian crook and I grew up practicing judo with Vladimir Putin and he’s given me leave to steal stuff or strip the assets out of some formally state-run company,” Maddow said, explaining the character she would play in her role-playing. “I’m a Russian bad guy. I’ve got ill gotten gains.”

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“I’ve got stolen money and I would like to enjoy my stolen money and so in order to do so, I have to secret those funds away somewhere where they won’t get noticed by law enforcement. Where they won’t get taxed. And where anybody who might prosecute me, or persecute me for the way I got this money, they won’t be able to find it and reclaim it and trace it back to me,” Maddow continued.

“If I want to get $10 million out of Russia, I want to convert it from Rubles into some other currency. To get it out without anybody noticing, it has to look like that money is leaving the country as some part of legitimate transaction,” Maddow noted. “That’s where Deutsche Bank comes in.”

“So you need to have something you’re going to buy for a lot of money. So you have somebody abroad go to the bank and say ‘I have this highlighter and the price of this highlighter I want to sell is $10 million.’ Miraculously, simultaneously at that same moment you pop up in Moscow with your $10 million in ill gotten Rubles and say hey, office, ‘do you know anybody selling something I might be able to buy for $10 million? I was thinking of investing in a highlighter. Do you know anybody selling one for $10 million?’ Maddow explained, holding up a highlighter.

“I’m the dude in Russia, I hand $10 million in dirty Rubles into the Moscow office. They say you purchased a highlighter,” Maddow recapped. “Then over in their other office abroad in London or wherever, that bank’s office, they pay their client $10 million in euros or dollars or whatever and they, you know, collect the highlighter that’s just been sold. And that’s it, that’s how the money moves.”

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