Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 106 posts

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#31

Post by et2o »

reedjosh wrote: post #30

Everyone is surprised to find the government does shady stuff, but many of these operations are even acknowledged like Iran-Contra where the government sold arms to the embargoed Khomeini government to generate black money to fund the Contras. > Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to the Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo.[2]…

This wasn’t “shady,” this was essentially a sting operation where they eventually seized 90 million dollars in cash and arrested over 100 people. Not bad. The bigger result was that it poisoned trust of banks by there kinds of criminals.

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#32

Post by capitol_ »

542458 wrote: post #22
singlow wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were the bank activities themselves illegal? It would only be entrapment if they were soliciting the illegal activity. It sounds like they were just soliciting banking services in a way that was attractive to illegal actors. Even if the banking services themselves were not legal, it would seem like entrapment if they used that to charge them with banking crimes. If NYPD operated a Limousine service in hopes that crim…

“ It would only be entrapment if they were soliciting the illegal activity.” I’d like to note that this isn’t how entrapment works in the US (or many other places). If I’m an investigator, it is not entrapment for me to go to government employees and say “Hey, I’ll give you $100 in exchange for state secrets. You in?”. Covertly soliciting illegal activity to try to catch criminals is not entrapment. It only rises to…

This makes no sense to me, why is $100 different than a threat to the wife?

Is it because the amount of money is too low?

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#33

Post by cronix »

saul_goodman wrote: post #10

Let's see, so they didn't nab any of the big players in the operation. So effectively they helped the biggest players by making it harder for the small to mid-tier drug cartels do conduct business. Sure, way to put the squeeze on the cartels there... A tangent to this is the way we conduct drug enforcement in the US. It's much better for police departments to wait until after the dealers make money to catch them so t…

Right, like in Oregon they recently decriminalized "personal amounts" of all drugs. Crack, heroin, meth, fentanyl, etc. Whatever you want...it's now just a misdemeanor offense like a parking ticket as long as you're under some limit. So personal amounts are "ok," but how does one obtain a "personal" amount from someone else unless they have more than a personal amount? In other words, on one hand it's illegal to deal the drugs, but after you've obtained them illegally it's ok. That logic doesn't square.

> Just because small amounts are decriminalized, it doesn't apply when a person has more than is specified under the law.

> "Possession of larger amounts of drugs, manufacturing and distribution are still crimes," Fox said.

https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2021/01/31/what-...

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#34

Post by gjvnq »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #9
ptsneves wrote: post #3

I always wonder how this is legal in the U.S.A? Creating a fake bank in another country sounds like committing fraud in another country. At worst it can be they would be charged with money laundering themselves. What is the line of what is acceptable at entrapment in the United States? What stops any agency from creating permanent fake banks for example? I am glad drug lords get busted. I hate them, but I think if th…

It's legal because the law doesn't explicitly forbid it, I guess? Legality is a very flexible thing. Morality is another, but not necessarily the same. Anyway, generally speaking, law enforcement is granted things that citizens do not, e.g. visibly wearing weapons, owning and transporting narcotics, etc. But those things are obvious. Your last bit is very totalitarian, and I would have hoped we had intellectually gro…

Interestingly, the principal of legality in Brazil has two different meanings:

1. For regular people, it mean that they can do whatever the law doesn't forbid. 2. For public officials, it means they can only do what the law allows.

Source: https://www.migalhas.com.br/amp/depeso/302660/principio-da-l...

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#35

Post by verall »

cronix wrote: post #33
saul_goodman wrote: post #10

Let's see, so they didn't nab any of the big players in the operation. So effectively they helped the biggest players by making it harder for the small to mid-tier drug cartels do conduct business. Sure, way to put the squeeze on the cartels there... A tangent to this is the way we conduct drug enforcement in the US. It's much better for police departments to wait until after the dealers make money to catch them so t…

Right, like in Oregon they recently decriminalized "personal amounts" of all drugs. Crack, heroin, meth, fentanyl, etc. Whatever you want...it's now just a misdemeanor offense like a parking ticket as long as you're under some limit. So personal amounts are "ok," but how does one obtain a "personal" amount from someone else unless they have more than a personal amount? In other words, on one hand it's illegal to deal…

At the very least, it makes it hard to prosecute low level drug offenders, which is where the most abuse (originating from the government) is in the system.

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#36

Post by reedjosh »

scarecrowbob wrote: post #26
briandear wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism? A bit of a stretch there. Hippies were mostly upper middle class white kids rebelling against their post-war indulgent upbringing. And alcohol prohibition before that was aimed at everyone.

Per the grandparent, yes "marijuana and crack prosecution" have explicitly racist elements. Specifically, the 1930s anti-cannabis is specifically anti-Hispanic, and the question of why there are massively different sentencing laws around crack and powder cocaine seems to me and most of the people I know to have many obvious racial elements.

I love this comment. This is one area where I think crying racism is actually justified.

Racism is thrown around as a justification for anything today, but _real_ racist policies like:

> different sentencing laws around crack and powder cocaine

That persist today are almost never mentioned.

Another policy that disproportionally effects blacks:

> A mother will receive far more from welfare if she is single than if she has an employed husband in the home.

https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/12/24/ways-war-poverty-des...

> But by the mid-1980s, black fatherlessness skyrocketed. Today, only 44% of black children have a father in the home. In unison, the rate of black out-of-wedlock births went from 24.5% in 1964 to 70.7% by 1994, roughly where it stands today.

https://ifstudies.org/blog/family-breakdown-and-americas-wel...

This in particular is discussed at length in Moe Factz https://podcast.app/moe-factz-with-adam-curry-p810825/

An excellent podcast!

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#37

Post by 10000truths »

capitol_ wrote: post #32
542458 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ It would only be entrapment if they were soliciting the illegal activity.” I’d like to note that this isn’t how entrapment works in the US (or many other places). If I’m an investigator, it is not entrapment for me to go to government employees and say “Hey, I’ll give you $100 in exchange for state secrets. You in?”. Covertly soliciting illegal activity to try to catch criminals is not entrapment. It only rises to…

This makes no sense to me, why is $100 different than a threat to the wife? Is it because the amount of money is too low?

Because one is presented as an option that you are free to turn down, and the other is a threat to your family that forces you to comply.

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#38

Post by nicbou »

cronix wrote: post #33
saul_goodman wrote: post #10

Let's see, so they didn't nab any of the big players in the operation. So effectively they helped the biggest players by making it harder for the small to mid-tier drug cartels do conduct business. Sure, way to put the squeeze on the cartels there... A tangent to this is the way we conduct drug enforcement in the US. It's much better for police departments to wait until after the dealers make money to catch them so t…

Right, like in Oregon they recently decriminalized "personal amounts" of all drugs. Crack, heroin, meth, fentanyl, etc. Whatever you want...it's now just a misdemeanor offense like a parking ticket as long as you're under some limit. So personal amounts are "ok," but how does one obtain a "personal" amount from someone else unless they have more than a personal amount? In other words, on one hand it's illegal to deal…

That makes sense to me. Chasing consumers is a waste of time and money. The arrest itself might cause more societal damage than the drugs if it ruins people's lives or is used to target minorities.

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#39

Post by kayodelycaon »

cronix wrote: post #33
saul_goodman wrote: post #10

Let's see, so they didn't nab any of the big players in the operation. So effectively they helped the biggest players by making it harder for the small to mid-tier drug cartels do conduct business. Sure, way to put the squeeze on the cartels there... A tangent to this is the way we conduct drug enforcement in the US. It's much better for police departments to wait until after the dealers make money to catch them so t…

Right, like in Oregon they recently decriminalized "personal amounts" of all drugs. Crack, heroin, meth, fentanyl, etc. Whatever you want...it's now just a misdemeanor offense like a parking ticket as long as you're under some limit. So personal amounts are "ok," but how does one obtain a "personal" amount from someone else unless they have more than a personal amount? In other words, on one hand it's illegal to deal…

The point of decriminalizing personal amounts of drugs is to change police behavior because they are doing more harm than good in this area.

You want to arrest the people who are dealing drugs or causing other crimes, not permanently ruining the lives of people who are doing no harm to society.

Re: How the government set up a fake bank to launder drug money (2012)

#40

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #28
saul_goodman wrote: post #10

Let's see, so they didn't nab any of the big players in the operation. So effectively they helped the biggest players by making it harder for the small to mid-tier drug cartels do conduct business. Sure, way to put the squeeze on the cartels there... A tangent to this is the way we conduct drug enforcement in the US. It's much better for police departments to wait until after the dealers make money to catch them so t…

I think it’s bold to assume the government even wants to nab the big guys. One example is fentanyl is killing us by the thousands every year. We know who the guy is who owns the factor that’s providing most of the fentanyl and precursors to the cartels. He lives in China and runs an also legit chemical factory. He commits the crime right in the main factory in the open. We politely asked China to arrest him, but they…

In response to the Fentanyl/heroin issue, State govs clamp down on legit opioid Rx, leaving Dr's too wary to Rx any effective pain meds at all.

People in chronic pain now get to live their lives without any relief at all. They get ignored my news orgs who are obsessed with amplifying an opioid hysteria narrative.

Go Gov.

Post reply on HN