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Squillions: How money laundering won

lrb.co.uk

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Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#101

Post by margalabargala »

Cider9986 wrote: post #48
margalabargala wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Let's ignore the fact that that was done by private companies and not directly by a government.

The mechanism is to make it so undesirable objects are not available for sale. The above comment is implying these things would remain legitimately for sale as normal, but you would be unable to spend money on them.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#102

Post by efsavage »

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 haven't seen a cash only business since covid

Collectibles (e.g. trading cards) are still a "cash is king" market. Some dealer only take cash, virtually all of them prefer it, and offer steep "discounts" (lack of markup) for cash.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#103

Post by anigbrowl »

rwmj wrote: post #72
graemep wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a result, governments continue to strengthen and expand laws in that direction. Which creates national security and sovereignty issues. Cash is robust and decentralised. There is a good reason Sweden went from pushing cashless to advising people to keep cash at home for emergencies, and were at least considering an obligation to accept cash for small transactions.

> Which creates national security and sovereignty issues Are you talking about people who don't pay tax? They create very large national security and sovereignty issues. Countries that don't collect much tax have real problems with both of these. > There is a good reason Sweden went from pushing cashless to advising people to keep cash at home for emergencies The key phrase being "for emergencies".

As a consumer, I like paying with cash. It's more convenient for me to think about the amount I have on me than to maintain a mental inventory of bank/card balances all the time. That's my business, not anyone else's.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#104

Post by convolvatron »

y-curious wrote: post #57
nandomrumber wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ma…

My barber loves talking about “creative tax tricks” he does as an all cash joint. More interesting was how he managed to purchase a home despite having very little reported income. It involved friends in the “legitimate” cannabis industry in California, but he got it done. I’m not sure the stress is worth (presumably) 20% or so savings for his income.

its not just his income. everybody in the cash economy wins. if I take cash and pay my employees in cash, that's a few transactions the tax man misses out on.

quite a bit of labor runs on cash. you can usually get a deal for a lot of services by paying in cash. sometimes the floor manager will take cash and never even report the transaction to the business much less the tax man (I rent forklifts and get plating work done this way).

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#105

Post by iamacyborg »

mike_hearn wrote: post #66

I learned a lot about the AML system many years ago and still have some books about how it works on my bookshelf. It's fascinating stuff. A few minor comments. My wife and I have owned and used 1000 CHF notes quite a few times in the past. The last two times we moved apartments I paid part of the moving fee with a 1000 CHF note. We've also bought furniture this way. Nobody was surprised to see this and the notes were…

> The UK did this already and ML is out of control there: criminals just don't care.

From 18th May:

“A new £30m High Street organised crime unit has been announced by the government after the BBC's year-long investigative reporting into illegal mini-marts, vape shops and barbers.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3pzwx449no

Of course, remains to be seen what, if any, impact this ends up having.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#106

Post by cyberax »

photios wrote: post #33
cyberax wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People need to learn about Bitcoin. Indeed. Bitcoin is now a major player in the money laundering business. NFTs are so much better than fake pocelain!

> I can invalidate Bitcoin, by comparing it to NFTs. I'm sorry, that's not how it works.

Yes, it does. You just make a round-trip through one of the exchanges.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#107

Post by buran77 »

humoctopus wrote: post #94
marysol5 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, handling cash has fees to "third parties" too. In a lot of cases it's a lot higher than just taking card.

My business needs to insure cash that we keep at the shop in case we get robbed, but that amount is much much less than we pay in credit card fees. In other words, we would much prefer customers to pay with debit or cash.

What about the extra costs of handling cash, the practical effort to count it, prepare it for transport (including bags, counters, and so on), transporting to the bank, increased security, possibly more cash registers, counterfeit detectors etc.? Overall is it usually more expensive to take credit cards than cash or just in particular cases?

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#108

Post by margalabargala »

alibarber wrote: post #86
dataflow wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, duffel bags full. Citation needed? Where did you hear that this is a routine occurrence? That seems risky for everybody involved, and it requires a report to the government from the seller.

Selling a car usually does require a report to the government. Why would the seller care what happens down the line to the buyer?

Because the legal system in most Western countries is set up that the seller bears liability for laundering money if they accept duffel bags of cash for a car without the same documentation a bank would require.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#109

Post by matheusmoreira »

Cider9986 wrote: post #52
photios wrote: post #29

In this day and age "money laundering" just means "not bending over and letting the state tax you to oblivion". TFA is just scare mongering. People need to learn about Bitcoin.

You might want to check out Monero. It's like Bitcoin but actually usable for purchases. And it's private.

Agreed. Monero is what Bitcoin should have been from the start. Extremely underrated cryptocurrency.

Re: Squillions: How money laundering won

#110

Post by matheusmoreira »

bradley13 wrote: post #60

First off, money laundering does not require cash. So the premise is a bit strange. Second, I submit that money laundering should not be considered a crime at all. Monitoring it (for example, banks required to report large cash transactions to the government) just leads to mass surveillance of innocent people. Transferring money from A to B - why should that be a crime? The point of anti-money-laundering laws is that…

Completely agree with you. AML/KYC laws are just the financial arm of global mass surveillance. They should be opposed and resisted on principle. It doesn't matter if it makes the police's job more difficult.
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