Live data from Hacker News

Money Laundering and AML Compliance

bitsaboutmoney.com

111–120 of 218 posts

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you protest when a hitman can't do another hit or access his corrupted proceeds to pay his maid or or pay his kid's dental bills? If you are an employee or dependent of a violent organization, the 'unfortunate' effect is someday people may no longer want to do businesses with that organization or its corrupted money.

> Do you protest when a hitman can't do another hit or access his corrupted proceeds to pay his maid or or pay his kid's dental bills? No, I would not protest freezing the account of a hitman. Now please show me how I can hire a govt sponsored hitman with USD and I’ll lend your argument some credence.

They don't need you to hire them, they just steal your money and do it.

Here's some great examples!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._...

edit: lol person below appears to have no idea what an analogy is... nor the fact I was referring to fellow violent instigators of violence and not literally restricting it just to the ones a specific HNer can readily hire for a specific task. But fucking weird to ask, not to mention their solicitation may be a crime.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you protest when a hitman can't do another hit or access his corrupted proceeds to pay his maid or or pay his kid's dental bills? No, I would not protest freezing the account of a hitman. Now please show me how I can hire a govt sponsored hitman with USD and I’ll lend your argument some credence.

They don't need you to hire them, they just steal your money and do it. Here's some great examples! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._... edit: lol person below appears to have no idea what an analogy is... nor the fact I was referring to fellow violent instigators of violence and not literally restricting it just to the ones a specific HNer can readily hire for a specific task. But fucking…

This analogy has fallen apart, sorry.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#113
post #3

Every post from patio11 is such a joy to read: precise, exact, descriptive, and entertaining. I'd love to understand where his writing style comes from and how to emulate it.

The true answer, which may not be useful, is that style is what happens when one writes five million words. For the first few hundred thousand you end up sounding a lot like your favorite authors and what your teachers wanted. Then you start doubling down on what is working, try random experiments, bounce around an incentive gradient a bit, and also accumulate a decade plus of life experience and hopefully some knowledge. Eventually, people start sounding like you. There is no day in the middle where you hire a focus group of writing professionals to develop a house style guide.

That is a joke but not much of one; writing style guides to capture "What is... taste? How do we scale it?" is a project I've actually been involved with. This project brief has defeated many talented people, the least of which being me.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#114

It is expensive to keep a crime and corruption department on your banking institution. If you are dealing with a millionaire who is related to some oil mogul in Russia you can do your due diligence and Vladimirovich can hire a team of accountants to prove that his business is legit and not at all related to the corporativist oligarchy his uncle runs. Or it might be, but the risk vs reward is good enough to turn a bli…

Being a millionaire is no where near enough for banks to look the other way.

They turn away millionaire accounts all the time. You need to have many hundreds of millions under management for them to do their diligence so you can open an account.

Most accounts under 10 million cannot even get cleared to trade high risk options. No way in hell they'll skip AML checks.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a really great book called Kleptopia by T. Burgis. It’s about how wealthy oligarchs use the Western legal and banking systems. He points out that the US financial system is squeaky clean. Oligarchs wind up in prison because they think they can pull the crap in New York that they pull in London. But outside the financial sector it’s the 100% opposite. Americas permissive corporate transparency lets assets vani…

> The best example: if you want to get a mortgage to buy a house you have submit to a financial strip search. But if you want to buy a house with bags of cash, you don’t even need to give your name. What is this an example of? You are submitting a financial strip search because the lender wants to ensure the borrower can pay the debt, not to ensure they are a criminal or not. And that is because prior to 2008, lender…

[deleted]

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#116
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a really great book called Kleptopia by T. Burgis. It’s about how wealthy oligarchs use the Western legal and banking systems. He points out that the US financial system is squeaky clean. Oligarchs wind up in prison because they think they can pull the crap in New York that they pull in London. But outside the financial sector it’s the 100% opposite. Americas permissive corporate transparency lets assets vani…

I don’t think the US financial system is anything close to clean but they might be strictly hostile to Russians and the government/regulators will not tolerate that. That boils down to US conflict with Russia. Europe didn’t have a beef in this until the Ukraine invasion.

Read Kleptopia. It’s written by a British author and mostly about the British financial/legal system.

I’m not sure how much of it is current in light of the sanctions. The big example it uses (90% of the book) is Khazakhstan.

From what I’ve read more recently, many rich/middle class folks in Latin America are moving to the US. If their businesses so much as look at drug money, and then they so much as look at an American bank, they can wind up in a US prison for a long time.

So they just move to America to get away from drug gangs.

The US does not f*ck around with criminal financing.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#117

Governor Tarkin: Princess Leia, before your execution, you will join me at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now. Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. Every government and central bank in the world is tightening their grip around the tiniest transactions of their citizenry. In t…

I think it's appropriate you open with Star Wars, as this is mainly fantasy. > burdening 8 billion law-abiding Citizens with impossibly complex and arduous KYC/AML requirements Not sure if you read the article, but they just aren't a significant burden for most people. They could be better, sure. And I think the "driven to use Cryptocurrency" example does not pair at all well with FTX. The massive wave of cryptocurre…

No, you aren’t burdened. The bulk of humanity is, though.

The compliance costs in terms of effort/time/money expended per dollar of revenue affected is probably 10x to 100x for them, as it is for you. This has been my experience, and my observation across many life stories. I taught basic finance to hundreds of mid- to low-income families in the 2000’s.

So again - a “let them eat cake” admonishion.

And FTX was just a massive, traditional fraud. Literally nothing to do with Cryptocurrency, other than as the medium of the fraud.

Random charlatans stealing money from gullible and trusting marks.

The bulk of the legitimate cryptocurrency platforms continue working. A few that were obvious mathematical impossibilities implode - much like fraudulent businesses have for ages past.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#118

It is expensive to keep a crime and corruption department on your banking institution. If you are dealing with a millionaire who is related to some oil mogul in Russia you can do your due diligence and Vladimirovich can hire a team of accountants to prove that his business is legit and not at all related to the corporativist oligarchy his uncle runs. Or it might be, but the risk vs reward is good enough to turn a bli…

Hi. I'm Australian.

When Australian companies offer shareholder deals (like capital raises, offering shareholders a chance to get in first on favourable terms) there is usually a neatly printed prospectus that has a couple of pages in very explicit language saying "this is NOT FOR AMERICANS. Please do not show this to a US citizen. If you are a US citizen, you must disregard this booklet!".

It always strikes me as unfortunate just how badly the US is locking themselves out of otherwise quite good investment opportunities. I always assumed that these service refusals were due to AML laws using logic similar to what you describe. It is always the US. We're ok with Europeans, Asians, Africans and South Americans.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I’ve heard someone calling this shotgun KYC. They will allow you to deposit but as soon as you show signs of using that money they take it as hostage until you prove you are not a criminal.

Sites like Paypal and Skrill did this because they know most people would otherwise just cancel on sign up , and when you've got money locked in you have no choice but to complete verification. Thankfully i haven't had to deal with their crap in the past 4 years due to better options existing.

My brother actually abandoned 50€ 10+ years ago because he refused to do that verification ... I wonder if he could actually get that money back in any way still ...

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#120
post #118

It is expensive to keep a crime and corruption department on your banking institution. If you are dealing with a millionaire who is related to some oil mogul in Russia you can do your due diligence and Vladimirovich can hire a team of accountants to prove that his business is legit and not at all related to the corporativist oligarchy his uncle runs. Or it might be, but the risk vs reward is good enough to turn a bli…

Hi. I'm Australian. When Australian companies offer shareholder deals (like capital raises, offering shareholders a chance to get in first on favourable terms) there is usually a neatly printed prospectus that has a couple of pages in very explicit language saying "this is NOT FOR AMERICANS. Please do not show this to a US citizen. If you are a US citizen, you must disregard this booklet!". It always strikes me as un…

That’s due to US securities laws, not AML. The real reach through for Australia EY al. is FACTA, where any person with US citizenship invokes extra and onerous reporting requirements.
Post reply on HN