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Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

theguardian.com

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Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#71

Post by from »

strogonoff wrote: post #16
radicaldreamer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expenses are interesting and add up rapidly (as any business owner knows)... 500k over two years for 20 people is only $1000/person/month and that has to account for all living expenses plus whatever else is required (flight training, cover identities, bribes, pay-for-play etc.)

Yes, of course the parent did not specify what they thought as “cheap”, I am only pointing out that it is apparently not as cheap as a couple of airplane tickets. In other words, their point was that all you need is a desire to fly an airplane into a building, but my point is that you need that plus XXX kilodollars (spread over time or not). Reportedly, one of the 9/11 guys was wired $100k in one go[0]—these amounts…

But it's not like they put "explosives and other ordinances" in the subject line. For all the bank knew Atta was just some flight school student. If banks were to require justification for every wire transfer, legitimate commerce (also remittances and a bunch of other things) would grind to a halt.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#72

Post by jazzyjackson »

sschueller wrote: post #10
math-dev wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is too high currently (no surprise), so they need something to distract the masses with

So they can spend a warping 770 Billion a year on defense. How do you even sell that with so many people struggling in the US?

because the bulk of that 770 Billion is payroll, military spending is a jobs program.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#73

Post by from »

vmception wrote: post #6

Money, liquidity, and fungibility is a public good, it has been (and still is) a waste of public and private resources to attempt to alter that reality. Although this isn't a popular or public opinion by the public or banks or politicians, it is also the reality for banks and their host governments, and all lip service otherwise is either a lie for data collection or simply fails spectacularly at actually preventing…

I'm convinced there's always going to be some new frontier for regulators to say "if we could just get rid of this, there'd be no more crime."

80s/90s: offshore banks, bearer shares

00s: MSBs/money orders/check cashers

10s: prepaid/gift cards, crypto, luxury real estate

Truth is that as long as you can triple your money bringing cocaine from Mexico to Texas people are gonna do it. If anything they've made it harder to track because instead of criminal proceeds just being deposited in a Miami bank account they're being used to buy cell phones for export to Colombia.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#74

Post by anamax »

blablabla123 wrote: post #64
barry-cotter wrote: post #23

> This article is a bit difficult to understand; there's a mixture of actual money laundering with the non-crime of "a really bad person has a bank account". There's a difficult and IMO increasingly urgent question here, of whether the banking system is a utility or something else. There's no whistleblowers from the electricity company, even though it literally kept the lights on for murderers and traffickers. Nobody…

> There's no whistleblowers from the electricity company, even though it literally kept the lights on for murderers and traffickers To play devil's advocate here, if those people completed their sentence and they are being resocialized they have access to what any regular citizen is supposed to access. OTOH if they haven't been sentenced yet and the electricity company knows of it, I think they are walking on thin ic…

> OTOH if they haven't been sentenced yet and the electricity company knows of it, I think they are walking on thin ice if they don't report it.

In what country is "no electricity" (part of) the sentence for murderers? And even in a country where "no electricity" is (part of) the sentence for murder, shouldn't the electric company only impose it in response to a court order?

More to the point, if they haven't been sentenced, why is the electric company imposing a sentence?

Along the same lines, if they haven't been convinced, why is the electric company treating them differently?

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#75

Post by vmception »

harry8 wrote: post #53
vmception wrote: post #6

Money, liquidity, and fungibility is a public good, it has been (and still is) a waste of public and private resources to attempt to alter that reality. Although this isn't a popular or public opinion by the public or banks or politicians, it is also the reality for banks and their host governments, and all lip service otherwise is either a lie for data collection or simply fails spectacularly at actually preventing…

> it doesn't matter what anyone's background is, they can still access banking and pools of liquidity to move between assets and trade with others anyway. Julian Assange & Wikleaks had no access to the banking system because a US politician asked the banks to refuse them service at a time when they had not been charged with any crime. Whenever you see someone you "dislike" being dealt with in an extradjudicial manner…

Right, correct, it should be illegal for the government to attempt leveraging financial intermediaries this way, even for people we don't like. Just like we don't cut the power off for people we don't like.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#76

Post by radicaldreamer »

from wrote: post #71
strogonoff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course the parent did not specify what they thought as “cheap”, I am only pointing out that it is apparently not as cheap as a couple of airplane tickets. In other words, their point was that all you need is a desire to fly an airplane into a building, but my point is that you need that plus XXX kilodollars (spread over time or not). Reportedly, one of the 9/11 guys was wired $100k in one go[0]—these amounts…

But it's not like they put "explosives and other ordinances" in the subject line. For all the bank knew Atta was just some flight school student. If banks were to require justification for every wire transfer, legitimate commerce (also remittances and a bunch of other things) would grind to a halt.

Also, there are lots of wealthy Saudis all over and 100k probably doesn't even register as a "large" payment in those circles.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#77

Post by social_quotient »

bostonsre wrote: post #39
social_quotient wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should it be limited to just elite or everyone all the way down? Not trolling you as it might sound but how do you draw lines between elite and not elite.

The elite seem to be able to scale the harm they do pretty well. I wouldn't be against focusing more resources on pursuing elite bad actors, but don't think there should be a minimum bad bar that must be surpassed to get prosecuted.

It’s a good perspective on the multiplier aspect. I presume it goes both ways. Elite can do great things at scale but also exhibit a level of harm that is well beyond a linear comparative. Thx for the thought.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#79

Post by Teever »

rich_sasha wrote: post #67
barry-cotter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whilst I agree with everything you say (quote?), you’re not meant to bank with unexplained[1] or unsavoury sources of funds. Guilty until proven innocent is the legal basis for civil forfeiture too. So by supporting both depriving people of access to banking and criminalizing usage of cash you can fully drive them out of society. [1] This is the guilty until proven innocent bit

This is a bit different. It sounds like with US civil forfeiture you can just seize any and all assets merely because someone is accused of something unrelated. This I agree is awful. Bank KYC is a bit different. A bank, certainly at this level, is supposed to know who you are and where your money is coming from ahead of setting up the account. They have to satisfy themselves it’s a legal source. If they become suspi…

Yes but a bank is supposed to do this because a law that was written to force them to do it.

There is not reason other than that, and it's circular logic to sidestep due process to point to the law that says that they have to do it as the reason they have to do it.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#80

Post by mrandish »

barry-cotter wrote: post #23

> This article is a bit difficult to understand; there's a mixture of actual money laundering with the non-crime of "a really bad person has a bank account". There's a difficult and IMO increasingly urgent question here, of whether the banking system is a utility or something else. There's no whistleblowers from the electricity company, even though it literally kept the lights on for murderers and traffickers. Nobody…

> the non-crime of "a really bad person has a bank account"

> Nobody gets sentenced to "and you are not allowed a bank account for the rest of your life".

You make some thought-provoking points. Over the past decade I've noticed a creeping erosion of the fundamental liberal tenet "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" in the courts of public opinion and media assumption.

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