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The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of Bitcoin

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111–120 of 236 posts

Re: The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of Bitcoin

#111
post #105

Why would you go through this elaborate process when you could just get HSBC to launder your money.

No dufflebags?

If you have enough volume, HSBC will customize your experience by modifying teller windows to accept the hard briefcase of your choice. You won't have to worry about some random guy cutting your bag and stealing your illicit cash!

Re: The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of Bitcoin

#112
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, you can email it to your miner buddy. it's possible to spot such transactions if they violate transaction forwarding rules (aka standardness rules) but not consensus rules. for example, a transaction greater than 100kB is not standard but still valid.

Yeah but wouldn’t it require some kind of fork of the BTC software (not chain) to actually include this transaction without sending it to everyone else?

The transaction is valid to all miners, it just isn't shared with the network until your buddy finds a block that includes it.

Re: The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of Bitcoin

#113
post #14

I get that money laundering is always linked to criminal activity, but how have we always just accepted the lack of personal privacy when it comes to finance? Privacy is a feature, not a bug; and whilst crypto may not be the way forward, I hope one day we can reach a solution that has both privacy and also safety. The language used by law enforcement is quite alarming, it suggests that they should be privy to ALL tra…

> how have we always just accepted the lack of personal privacy when it comes to finance? It was very easy. The American public was hoodwinked into accepting the 16th Amendment (levying an income tax) as a tax the rich scheme. And like all tax the rich schemes it was a cover to tax everyone, especially the middle class. You can't have an income tax without the government prying into everyone's finances. Before this f…

The income tax was first introduced in the UK, in 1799, to fund a war against France, and the rate was only 10%, and only levied on the rich.

The first American income tax was also introduced in a war - the Civil War.

Re: The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of Bitcoin

#114
post #14

I get that money laundering is always linked to criminal activity, but how have we always just accepted the lack of personal privacy when it comes to finance? Privacy is a feature, not a bug; and whilst crypto may not be the way forward, I hope one day we can reach a solution that has both privacy and also safety. The language used by law enforcement is quite alarming, it suggests that they should be privy to ALL tra…

I understand your point. However, privacy cannot shield one from tax and legal obligations. It is not just the proceeds from criminal activities, but also tax evasion (from the rich or companies) and terrorism financing.

If a tax requires the entire citizenry surrendering all of their financial privacy, it should be abolished.

Re: The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of Bitcoin

#115
post #92

I may be biased since I am holding and mining crypto, but I find recent slew of articles talking up the evils of crypto amusing. From eco evils to national security. Crypto is the culprit and banning it will bring salvation. Just today my superior shared WSJ opinion piece saying it should be banned altogether. I genuinely chuckled. It was ignored for so long, but only now when it may be genuinely hard to just put dow…

"First they ignore you"... We are fast approaching the "fight you" stage.

[deleted]

Re: The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of Bitcoin

#116
post #94
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can use cryptocurrency which hides all of your transactions (like zcash) Nit: only if you use zcash shielded wallets(very rare & resource hungry) are your assets private. Most wallets use transparent addresses, which is kind of similar to normal ones. Given current landscape, only monero is defacto private.

PirateChain and Aeon as well.

And AZTEC on Ethereum.

Re: The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of Bitcoin

#117
post #14

I get that money laundering is always linked to criminal activity, but how have we always just accepted the lack of personal privacy when it comes to finance? Privacy is a feature, not a bug; and whilst crypto may not be the way forward, I hope one day we can reach a solution that has both privacy and also safety. The language used by law enforcement is quite alarming, it suggests that they should be privy to ALL tra…

There's a difference between privacy and secrecy. If I'm involving my bank, what I'm doing is already not secret. My bank knows. But normally they keep those things private, because it's generally not anybody's business.

There are occasions where society's interest in preventing crime outweighs personal privacy, and one way to look at that is that when something (like, say, ransomware) has an effect on other people, it can no longer be reasonably called private. When that happens, as long as there are reasonable checks and balances, I'm fine with banks giving out information, especially when it's organizations that generally respect the privacy of the people involved.

Re: The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of Bitcoin

#119
post #99
post #14

I get that money laundering is always linked to criminal activity, but how have we always just accepted the lack of personal privacy when it comes to finance? Privacy is a feature, not a bug; and whilst crypto may not be the way forward, I hope one day we can reach a solution that has both privacy and also safety. The language used by law enforcement is quite alarming, it suggests that they should be privy to ALL tra…

Money laundering is not always linked to criminal activity except in so far as money laundering it itself illegal. Many nations (and not just "third world" nations) have some pretty onerous restrictions of flow of capital. A lot of money laundering activity is simply people moving money between jurisdictions. Admittedly, sometimes (usually?) with illegal goals such as tax evasion, but not always.

Money laundering is linked to criminal activity by definition. It literally means introducing the proceeds of criminal activity into the legitimate financial system.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/moneylaundering.asp

Re: The rise of crypto laundries: how criminals cash out of Bitcoin

#120
post #99
post #14

I get that money laundering is always linked to criminal activity, but how have we always just accepted the lack of personal privacy when it comes to finance? Privacy is a feature, not a bug; and whilst crypto may not be the way forward, I hope one day we can reach a solution that has both privacy and also safety. The language used by law enforcement is quite alarming, it suggests that they should be privy to ALL tra…

Money laundering is not always linked to criminal activity except in so far as money laundering it itself illegal. Many nations (and not just "third world" nations) have some pretty onerous restrictions of flow of capital. A lot of money laundering activity is simply people moving money between jurisdictions. Admittedly, sometimes (usually?) with illegal goals such as tax evasion, but not always.

Just so people downvoting this have an example, India has strong restrictions on capital movement. So much so that once when I was leaving India the outgoing customs inspector had me open my wallet, noticed excess rupees, and helpfully relieved me of some of them before I got on the plane. And less colorfully, I know somebody whose parents would like to move to the US to spend more time with their kids, but they can't legally transfer enough money to buy a house near those kids.

I honestly get why some countries have capital controls; rapid shifts in capital can be truly devastating to a small economy. And criminals are some of the people most eager to move large sums of money to other legal jurisdictions. But there are definitely cases where money laundering isn't linked to what most people would consider crime.

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