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Squillions: How money laundering won
11–20 of 238 posts
Re: Squillions: How money laundering won
#12In Italy there is a very aggressive law against money laundering: if you withdraw more than 1k cash, it triggers a call to the police. I know it's the same if you do it over multiple days. I think it has been relaxed a little bit later on, but in Italy everybody does the "I'll charge you X less without VAT" (which is 23% in Italy, I should point out), so this is also fighting that.
You mean they implemented laws under the guise of "money laundering".
They just want to track what you spend your money on, that's step one. Step two is to restrict what you can spend your money on, although this is a partial side effect of part 1.
Re: Squillions: How money laundering won
#13In Italy there is a very aggressive law against money laundering: if you withdraw more than 1k cash, it triggers a call to the police. I know it's the same if you do it over multiple days. I think it has been relaxed a little bit later on, but in Italy everybody does the "I'll charge you X less without VAT" (which is 23% in Italy, I should point out), so this is also fighting that.
That wouldn't help in the situations described in the article. For example where individuals buy drugs with small amounts of cash, then that cash is used to buy things like luxury watches and iphones, then those items are taken overseas and sold.
Seemingly the only effective way to solve this would be to ban purchasing highly resellable items with cash and requiring that cash to be deposited in to the system first.
Re: Squillions: How money laundering won
#14The state's ability to track and criminalize people based on financial behaviors through deputized financial intermediaries is new, and temporary. Outside of this social graph, where private cash transactions still exist, the state lacks power and relies on stigmatizing cash ownership, consumption, movement. This stigma is largely successful and ubiquitous but inconsequential to anybody that matters or has a lawyer o…
Where cash is stigmatized? I haven't seen such a place except PRC.
Most people want government to be able to seize assets of baddies. It is possible with cash, it is possible with banks, hardly possible with crypto.
The technology to scam people at scale with untraceable emoney is not everybody's cup of tea.
Speaking from a country that invaded its neighbor, for our government (as well as north korea) it is lovely to have a way around sanctions. Libertarian crypto bros of the west are a godsend.
They are also a godsend to current American president which loves a nice side of washed crypto along with all the other theft.
It is absolutely possible to like cash and dislike crypto
Re: Squillions: How money laundering won
#15The state's ability to track and criminalize people based on financial behaviors through deputized financial intermediaries is new, and temporary. Outside of this social graph, where private cash transactions still exist, the state lacks power and relies on stigmatizing cash ownership, consumption, movement. This stigma is largely successful and ubiquitous but inconsequential to anybody that matters or has a lawyer o…
Where cash is stigmatized? I haven't seen such a place except PRC. Most people want government to be able to seize assets of baddies. It is possible with cash, it is possible with banks, hardly possible with crypto. The technology to scam people at scale with untraceable emoney is not everybody's cup of tea. Speaking from a country that invaded its neighbor, for our government (as well as north korea) it is lovely to…
there is high consensus on that, but not high enough to enshrine it into the constitution. in countries with strong rule of law, the courts have continued to uphold this whenever the state gets bold enough to move on a previously tolerated "baddie"
capital, as an aggregate expression of people's desires, moves like water. if will flow through any small opening
capital controls will flow through any weak link, whether that's a Shanghai free trade zone, a freeport at the airport in JFK or Zurich, physical cash, illiquid assets traded through a trust, or natively in crypto, or crypto wrapped within the same aforementioned structures, no matter what the prevailing or commoner's view is everywhere else in the region
even countries that can change on the whims of an all powerful head of state, they don't really mess with the capital because it drives everyone else away and reduces the head of state's own liquidity and economic driver.
Re: Squillions: How money laundering won
#16In Italy there is a very aggressive law against money laundering: if you withdraw more than 1k cash, it triggers a call to the police. I know it's the same if you do it over multiple days. I think it has been relaxed a little bit later on, but in Italy everybody does the "I'll charge you X less without VAT" (which is 23% in Italy, I should point out), so this is also fighting that.
In other words, the Italian police are flooded with more reports than they could possibly investigate.
A great opportunity for selective enforcement!
Re: Squillions: How money laundering won
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
In other words, the Italian police are flooded with more reports than they could possibly investigate.
A great opportunity for selective enforcement!
Also parallel construction. "We caught him due to reports from his bank." (That's not how they caught him but those reports did exist.)
Re: Squillions: How money laundering won
#18" Bullough gives the example of a Mexican drug dealer who smuggles product across the border to the US. The drug in question would once have been marijuana, then cocaine, and is now likely to be fentanyl, which is cheap to manufacture and easy to conceal. The drugs are sold in the US for cash, which is used to buy, say, agricultural equipment. "
Wouldn't the person buying the tractor in the US for $$$ have to show where that money came from? Can you show up to John Deere with over a million dollars _in cash_?
Re: Squillions: How money laundering won
#19" Bullough gives the example of a Mexican drug dealer who smuggles product across the border to the US. The drug in question would once have been marijuana, then cocaine, and is now likely to be fentanyl, which is cheap to manufacture and easy to conceal. The drugs are sold in the US for cash, which is used to buy, say, agricultural equipment. " Wouldn't the person buying the tractor in the US for $$$ have to show wh…
The short answer is yes. You can buy cars, trucks and tractors for cash. The more expensive the car, the easier it often is. Luxury cars in particular are routinely bought and sold for cash.
Re: Squillions: How money laundering won
#20" Bullough gives the example of a Mexican drug dealer who smuggles product across the border to the US. The drug in question would once have been marijuana, then cocaine, and is now likely to be fentanyl, which is cheap to manufacture and easy to conceal. The drugs are sold in the US for cash, which is used to buy, say, agricultural equipment. " Wouldn't the person buying the tractor in the US for $$$ have to show wh…
The short answer is yes. You can buy cars, trucks and tractors for cash. The more expensive the car, the easier it often is. Luxury cars in particular are routinely bought and sold for cash.
> Luxury cars in particular are routinely bought and sold for cash.
Cash? As in hundred dollar bills?