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Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

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Re: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

#71

Post by LeonB »

toephu2 wrote: post #16

> Most airports worldwide, including in the U.S., don’t scan passenger luggage for cash, a costly undertaking in equipment and personnel. I think this is false. Anytime I've flown with cash in my checked in luggage, it was always stolen and it was obvious someone went through my suitcase. Then I stopped doing that obviously. (happened in U.S. and Indonesia)

Yup. They don’t officially look for cash — just means they don’t “officially” find any cash.

Airport security, the world over, is a magnet for criminals to self-organise, or be replaced by those who do.

Re: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

#72

Post by kortilla »

r2_pilot wrote: post #54
greenavocado wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boston, along with many Democrat strongholds in America, is strongly in favor of disarming the public, including law abiding citizens. The fact that this is normalized, including confiscation from a law abiding citizen, is absurd. There is an important legal document which states: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. " Nevermind the fact that legal gun owners and especially CHP holde…

I believe you are mistaken, as so very many people are, about that document. If you are quoting an important legal document, it's important, wouldn't you agree, to get the exact text correct, otherwise the meaning might change? Especially if the text is used for justification to allow a wide, practically unregulated population to be armed? Let's see, I am willing to bet the following statement is the actual quote fro…

Your “clarification” was to post a famously ambiguous sentence. It’s trivial to parse that as the militia being regulated, not the “bearing arms” part. Especially since it’s explicitly stating that the right “shall not be infringed”.

Re: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

#73

Post by benjaminwootton »

kortilla wrote: post #69
SoftTalker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly the case in the US for many people, why would it not be in the UK?

Even at effective minimum wage of 11.80 an hour[1], that’s only 2 months of salary. That’s not life altering in any way and wouldn’t be worth prison time to people in general. People have to have been tricked about the risks or were coerced. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...

People on minimum wage don’t get a chance to build savings are probably living month to month. Though it’s not an earth shattering of money it is meaningful to a lot of people.

Re: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

#74

Post by [deleted] »

lettergram wrote: post #20
toephu2 wrote: post #16

> Most airports worldwide, including in the U.S., don’t scan passenger luggage for cash, a costly undertaking in equipment and personnel. I think this is false. Anytime I've flown with cash in my checked in luggage, it was always stolen and it was obvious someone went through my suitcase. Then I stopped doing that obviously. (happened in U.S. and Indonesia)

How dare you question the TSA, the best and brightest of us. \s As a funny counter, I recently traveled through 6 TSA checkpoints with a loaded magazine in my bag. I had it from when I was at my farm, oops. Was a little concerned because I was in Boston when they found it (I’m based out of Tennessee). But they let me go and confiscated it. Point being, if they can’t find a loaded magazine, I doubt they’d be able to f…

[deleted]

Re: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

#75

Post by throwup238 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #67
throwup238 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US currency is made with a mix of 75% cotton and 25% linen fibers, rather than wood pulp like paper. They're less dense so they probably don't look the same on an xray.

But they have anti-counterfeiting metallic strips and ink, you'd think that would jump out on an x-ray image.

XRay depends on density and the security features are way too thin to matter

Re: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

#76

Post by wodenokoto »

crazygringo wrote: post #4

> ...heaved seven heavy suitcases onto the conveyor belt... > ...and a few million more dollars worth of cash in eight suitcases... > ...In October 2020, two other women weren’t so lucky. They were questioned at a Heathrow departure gate by officers of the Border Force, the agency in charge of U.K. customs and immigration. One of the women told officers she checked five suitcases to Dubai because she wasn’t sure what…

The mules generally don’t know that they are moving this much money. I think the risk of them running off with the cash would be quite high.

I think the high number of suitcases is simply because it went well with two, and the organizers saw how many people actually bring a lot of suitcases, so they kept upping the number every time they made a successful move.

Re: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

#77

Post by avidiax »

benmanns wrote: post #22
imglorp wrote: post #21

If someone really wanted to slow illicit businesses, they would look at ones of the US's biggest exports: shell corporations. Delaware and South Dakota churn them out legally by the hundreds of thousands. This is how all that laundering, tax evasion, and worse is performed. Tie then all to owners and halt much of this.

Starting January 1, 2025, existing companies will need to report beneficial owners to FinCEN, which may start the process of cutting down on shell company abuse. https://www.fincen.gov/boi-faqs#B_2

Last I heard about this, the shell companies have 6 months after creation to declare the true beficial owners.

So it seems like the game continues, now in 6 month installments.

Re: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

#78

Post by tastyfreeze »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #64
vaadu wrote: post #49

Money sniffing dogs? They train dogs to sniff for plants, food and drugs. Cash in baggage should be easy?

But cash is everywhere, and it's not illegal to have it in your luggage if declared or below a certain amount. Seems like you'd get a ton of false positives as it would be very difficult to train a dog to only alert if it smells a lot of cash. But I did read another article that said they sprayed their vacuum packed cash bags with coffee and air freshener - don't know if that works that well against cash sniffing dog…

Maybe cash sniffing elephants. Elephants can count, or at least scale, obscured items by smell.

Re: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

#79

Post by ben_w »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #73
kortilla wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even at effective minimum wage of 11.80 an hour[1], that’s only 2 months of salary. That’s not life altering in any way and wouldn’t be worth prison time to people in general. People have to have been tricked about the risks or were coerced. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...

People on minimum wage don’t get a chance to build savings are probably living month to month. Though it’s not an earth shattering of money it is meaningful to a lot of people.

Further to the same point, there's a cost of living crisis in the UK, so many people even above minimum wage are having to use food banks.

I can easily believe someone in such a position would jump (well, politely queue, they are British) at a chance for a "mere" few thousand.

Re: Billions in Dirty Money Flies Under the Radar at Busiest Airports

#80

Post by pintxo »

kortilla wrote: post #72
r2_pilot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are mistaken, as so very many people are, about that document. If you are quoting an important legal document, it's important, wouldn't you agree, to get the exact text correct, otherwise the meaning might change? Especially if the text is used for justification to allow a wide, practically unregulated population to be armed? Let's see, I am willing to bet the following statement is the actual quote fro…

Your “clarification” was to post a famously ambiguous sentence. It’s trivial to parse that as the militia being regulated, not the “bearing arms” part. Especially since it’s explicitly stating that the right “shall not be infringed”.

Funny that you start with agreeing that the meaning is ambiguous, and then follow up with it being trivial to parse. So what is it? Ambiguous or trivial to parse? I don’t think you can have it both ways.
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