Squillions: How money laundering won • Hacker News Board

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#41

Post by tony69 » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 6:42 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #13

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #2

In 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.

In Italy, it’s illegal to pay in cash anything over 5000 euros

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#42

Post by seanhunter » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 6:45 AM UTC

Aside: The author of this article wrote a fantastic novel that not a lot of people know about called “The Debt to Pleasure”. One of the best instances of the “unreliable narrator” I’ve ever read.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#43

Post by wutwutwat » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 6:50 AM UTC

dwd wrote: post #27

I always thought the TV show Ozark was fairly accurate in it's depiction of money laundering. The family would buy a small business that they could inject cash and cook the books with fake sales.

any tips based job; serving/waiting, stripping, bartending, etc. gig/service work. freelancer websites that offer escrow, etc. Shopify. Hell, github sponsorships. You don't even need a physical store these days, or a business for that matter. Cashapp even. The list is endless and it's easier than ever.

Now I just need some dirty money to go through the hassle of cleaning

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#44

Post by Cthulhu_ » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 7:00 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #34

arttaboi wrote: post #22

Here's an anecdotal thought: AML laws surprisingly work well to discourage offline transactions by tax-paying citizens, helping maximize tax reporting and improve tax collection. As a result, governments continue to strengthen and expand laws in that direction.

It used to be super common for many small businesses to be cash only or a 10% discount for cash. Likely the main driver for this was tax avoidance. I haven't seen a cash only business since covid. With a dwindling number of legitimate cash users, any business that is pulling in huge sums of cash well beyond the average is going to look increasingly suspicious.

I've mainly seen it in small businesses - e.g. food vendors - but instead they charge extra for using electronic payment methods. Also to offset the costs they're making on offering it I suspect, but it does encourage people to pay with cash.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#45

Post by markvdb » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 7:08 AM UTC

laszlojamf wrote: post #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 wh…

I don't know about the US. The EU limit on cash transactions differs by country, with a legal maximum of 10k€. Belgium and the Netherlands for example are at 3k€.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#46

Post by nandomrumber » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 7:08 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #34

arttaboi wrote: post #22

Here's an anecdotal thought: AML laws surprisingly work well to discourage offline transactions by tax-paying citizens, helping maximize tax reporting and improve tax collection. As a result, governments continue to strengthen and expand laws in that direction.

It used to be super common for many small businesses to be cash only or a 10% discount for cash. Likely the main driver for this was tax avoidance. I haven't seen a cash only business since covid. With a dwindling number of legitimate cash users, any business that is pulling in huge sums of cash well beyond the average is going to look increasingly suspicious.

> With a dwindling number of legitimate cash users

Services for laundering cash are going to see a huge uptick in turnover.

You put the cash in the local slot machine, the slot machine owner then purchases legitimate services from your wife / cousin / other family member’s business.

Or you rent a hole in the wall location massage business that that maybe legitimately employs one or two people but on the books they manage to see back to back clients for 20 hours a day.

Another good one is hair dresser / barber, they often take cash.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#47

Post by Cider9986 » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 7:09 AM UTC

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #9

Alternative to archive.ph Disable Javascript and CSS For example curl https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n09/john-lanchester/squillions \ |sed '1s/^/ /' > 1.htm firefox ./1.htm There are also Firefox add-ons that can do this as well Or use a text-only browser links https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n09/john-lanchester/squillions links -dump https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n09/john-lanchester/squillions

BPWC is good as well, but I would keep it in a separate browser profile.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#48

Post by Cider9986 » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 7:10 AM UTC

margalabargala wrote: post #31

HDBaseT wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Step two is to restrict what you can spend your money on Where do people get these ideas? How do they sincerely hold them? No non-religious government wants to restrict what you can spend your money on. They want to get a cut of your money, but otherwise it's strictly better for them if you spend as much of it as possible. If they don't want you to have things, they just attack those things directly, like hard drug…

>In July 2025, Visa and Mastercard pressured major digital storefronts Steam and Itch.io to delist thousands of adult and NSFW games.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#49

Post by Gigachad » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 7:11 AM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #44

Gigachad wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be super common for many small businesses to be cash only or a 10% discount for cash. Likely the main driver for this was tax avoidance. I haven't seen a cash only business since covid. With a dwindling number of legitimate cash users, any business that is pulling in huge sums of cash well beyond the average is going to look increasingly suspicious.

I've mainly seen it in small businesses - e.g. food vendors - but instead they charge extra for using electronic payment methods. Also to offset the costs they're making on offering it I suspect, but it does encourage people to pay with cash.

A card tx fee of around 1% is common. At 10% it’s tax evasion.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#50

Post by gobdovan » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 7:11 AM UTC

HDBaseT wrote: post #12

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #2

In 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.

You're onto something, but from some Romanian local investigations and public statements into similar cluster of laws [0], it's just something banks lobby for, so they can have more control and consolidate their place in any transaction chain. Maybe govt benefits a little, but when you see limited cash withdraws or commercial transactions requiring a bank system, it's usually private gains at play.

[0] (Romanian article) https://economedia.ro/parlamentarii-usr-au-depus-un-proiect-...