What do you call money earned through unethical sources?

Money/Assets/Property that is earned through unethical sources is called ?

Money that is earned through bad sources like corrupted politics, corrupted business, ransom money, stolen or theft money. What is such money called? Is it bad money, black money. What is one particular name for it?


It is often called: dirty money:

  • Profit from the sale of narcotics, prostitution, guns, or other illegal activities. Money that needs to be laundered.

  • money obtained illegally.

(AHD)


From dictionary.com...

ill-gotten gains Benefits obtained in an evil manner or by dishonest means, as in They duped their senile uncle into leaving them a fortune and are now enjoying their ill-gotten gains . [Mid-1800s]

I think one reasonably consistent distinction between this and @Josh61's suggestion is...

dirty money was usually already "illegal, hot, immoral" before the current "owner" got his hands on it. It passes through a "chain" of criminals all involved in illegal/immoral activities.

ill-gotten gains has no such "chain of illegal activity" connotations. Often it's just wealth "improperly" acquired by the current owner by a single illegal/immoral action.


A classic cliche for describing money "earned" in this manner is filthy lucre or just lucre:

filthy lucre Money; money or other material goods acquired through unethical or dishonorable means, dirty money. (See The Free Dictionary's entry under money.)

Lucre itself has taken on the shameful meaning imparted to it originally by the adjective filthy:

Word History: When William Tyndale translated aiskhron kerdos, "shameful gain" (Titus 1:11), as filthy lucre in his edition of the Bible, he was tarring the word lucre for the rest of its existence. But we cannot lay the pejorative sense of lucre completely at Tyndale's door. He was merely a link, albeit a strong one, in a process that had begun long before with respect to the ancestor of our word, the Latin word lucrum, "material gain, profit." This process was probably controlled by the inevitable conjunction of profit, especially monetary profit, with evils such as greed. In Latin lucrum also meant "avarice," and in Middle English lucre, besides meaning "monetary gain, profit," meant "illicit gain." (See The Free Dictionary: lucre.)