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Money Laundering and AML Compliance

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181–190 of 218 posts

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#181

Post by wpietri »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #158
ethbr0 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As separation of concerns, this sounds reasonable and efficient: why should it be the financial sector's job to weigh whether someone is good or bad? Better to make finance focus on ensuring there are quality, documented links where legally required... and then perform the judging elsewhere (e.g. legal system, FBI, journalism). That the US (and especially certain states) permits opaque corporate structures is a diffe…

I'd go further and say it isn't the job of Western countries to fix corruption. If Putin wants to fleece his people he can take his billions to a European bank.

Yes, good idea. Letting Putin corruptly build up power over the last 20 years clearly hasn't caused any problems outside of Russia. /s

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#182

Post by dsfyu404ed »

wpietri wrote: post #96
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I'm expressing a minority opinion on this, but I'd much rather have an unregulated system where I was able to send and receive money without any sort of hassle or oversight, even if criminals and people frowned upon by the people who run SWIFT are able to do the same.

That will seem swell to you until better-funded criminals want a piece of your assets, money, or labor. There are very good societal reasons to keep crime to a manageable level.

>That will seem swell to you until better-funded criminals want a piece of your assets, money, or labor.

And the status quo where the banks take a bigger cut to pay for their big compliance departments and the government takes a bigger cut to pay for auditing those compliance departments is somehow better?

X-percent not in your pocket is X-percent not in your pocket no matter how you cut it. At least in the proposed "stop giving a crap" case nobody will be denied access to boring routine financial products because they have a 3rd cousin with the same name as a Turkish mob boss.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#183

Post by dmichulke »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #166

My hope is that someday people will be able to open bank accounts and transfer money online without revealing their deadname to the bank, having it shoved in their face in bank websites and emails and phone calls, and doxxed to everybody sending them payments for purchases, or even a $1 donation over Ko-Fi.

Technically, that's one of the goals of Bitcoin

+ inflation security (not stated in your "wish")

- electricity consumption (which will be halved every 4 years unless BTC price rises)

- volatility (to be seen)

Complete (instead of pseudo-) anonymity and low cost of transaction (< 1 ct) is likely to be achieved using Lightning.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#184

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

exbanker wrote: post #32

The biggest money launderers are close to those who write the AML policies. One of the most significant money launderers is a famous attorney from Shearman and Sterling in NYC. From my experience, prominent financial executives attempted to engage in blatant laundering of drug money in BVI. These individuals were connected to the attorney and one is a public official appointed by 4 US Presidents. This was 20+ years a…

> They offered me $1 million in cash to fly with $100m at a time to Tortola.

Dump the cash out of the airplane on the way and claim it never happened.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#185

Post by wpietri »

pjkundert wrote: post #174
astrange wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't be proof of ownership if it's all of those things because ownership is decided by eg judges and not what's written in a random database somewhere.

Contract law. If we agree that what is scrawled on a napkin is a contract, it is.

As we've seen with the reactions of prominent crypto figures who've gotten robbed, approximately nobody really believes that the ledger is the final determiner of ownership. They don't say, "Well, other people own that money now," and move on. They tend get mad and call the cops, just like everybody else.

And as we're seeing in the great raft of crypto-related bankruptcies, judges don't take it seriously either. Just because somebody happens to hold the keys for tokens means very little to them. Something that appears quite palatable to the people who might get some of their investment back.

So in practice, it looks like digital ledgers are more of a "fantasy football" version of ownership tracking: taken very seriously by people who play the game while they're playing it, but not by anybody else, and also not when the game's over.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#186

Post by wpietri »

habinero wrote: post #131
pjkundert wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, there was that entire huge NFT crypto scam bubble. To a first and probably second approximation, crypto is only good for getting scammed and scamming others. There's a lot of overly credulous people in the field, which just attracts crime like a moth to a flame.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Are there possibly some uses of crypto that are a) value creating, b) socially positive, and c) not more easily/cheaply solved with other technologies? Sure. But it's got to be a small fraction of total money put in.

From MtGox to FTX it's been more than a decade of incompetence and fraud. I'm sure there are sincere people who were just excited about the technology who are devastated that the grifters and criminals rushed in to take advantage of their regulatory vacuum. But if they are truly sincere, they can't deny the massive problems in the space.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#187

Post by mistrial9 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #45
pyuser583 wrote: post #18

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…

Real estate is the ultimate legal grift in the US. The whole tax system is wired up to the benefit of real estate investors.

further, some say that the expansion curves in Piketty's "Capital in the 21st Century" are not across the whole economy, but that rapid inflated asset values in real estate in particular, are drivers.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#188

Post by wpietri »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #182
wpietri wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will seem swell to you until better-funded criminals want a piece of your assets, money, or labor. There are very good societal reasons to keep crime to a manageable level.

>That will seem swell to you until better-funded criminals want a piece of your assets, money, or labor. And the status quo where the banks take a bigger cut to pay for their big compliance departments and the government takes a bigger cut to pay for auditing those compliance departments is somehow better? X-percent not in your pocket is X-percent not in your pocket no matter how you cut it. At least in the proposed…

Yes, the status quo is definitely better. The numbers on total AML cost vary widely, and I think the high-end numbers are suspicious because there are incentives to inflate them. But taking them at face value, AML costs the US financial industry about 1% of revenue.

That is nothing compared to the costs of crime in high-crime/high-corruption societies. And looking at dollars alone doesn't paint a true picture. Criminal enterprises work through violence and add risk throughout the economy. E.g., if your business is doing well, a protection racket is not going to take 1% and call it a day. They'll take everything they think they can get. And if not, they break your leg. That serves as a strong disincentive to creating successful businesses.

Do the FDIC have disputes with the OCC? Probably. But unlike criminal gangs, they don't settle them with shooting wars in the streets.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#189

Post by repomies69 »

drexlspivey wrote: post #89
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I'm expressing a minority opinion on this, but I'd much rather have an unregulated system where I was able to send and receive money without any sort of hassle or oversight, even if criminals and people frowned upon by the people who run SWIFT are able to do the same.

I think you just described cryptocurrencies? Or did I miss the joke?

AML/KYC laws apply to cryptocurrencies as well, in fact more so because they are by default more suspicious. Try depositing big amount of BTC to an exchange, you will get questions.

Re: Money Laundering and AML Compliance

#190

Post by Spooky23 »

mistrial9 wrote: post #187
Spooky23 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real estate is the ultimate legal grift in the US. The whole tax system is wired up to the benefit of real estate investors.

further, some say that the expansion curves in Piketty's "Capital in the 21st Century" are not across the whole economy, but that rapid inflated asset values in real estate in particular , are drivers.

Probably. How much of the middle class lifestyle in big metros is built on home equity?
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