Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 194 posts

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#81

Post by g8oz »

lokar wrote: post #56
vorpalhex wrote: post #40

It surprises me how much Americans don't understand how deeply the cartel is in every transaction. Yes, sending money to Grandma to pay for a car is funding the cartel who probably got paid to make the car available. Grandma may even pay small direct bribes to the cartel just to be able to live her life. Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) or we can make Mexico a safe and excelle…

A safe and prosperous Mexico would be a huge advantage to America. We should be investing a lot more into this.

Something I found interesting was that China and Mexico have a similar Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per capita income (~$26000).

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#82

Post by Lord-Jobo »

RunSet wrote: post #64
BobbyJo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we want to stop illegal immigration, "not getting a car loan" and "harder to move money across the border" feel like the most humane ways to slow it down. Plus, the drug trade coming in from Mexico is, in fact, a huge problem, not just for the US, but for Mexico itself. Mexico is run by cartels specifically because of how much money is made off selling drugs to Americans. This isn't some non-existent problem they…

> If we want to stop illegal immigration, "not getting a car loan" and "harder to move money across the border" feel like the most humane ways to slow it down. I can think of a more humane way: Prosecuting the employers who break the law by hiring undocumented workers. The prospect of employment is what draws migrants here in the first place.

It’s the only effective method and they basically refuse to do it. Which is a clear sign: the goal is not to “effectively and efficiently stop illegal immigration”. It’s to “cruelly and brutally punish illegal immigrants”. You will see some overlap between those two, but not much. Which is why our Stephen Miller executive policy is the way it is right now.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#83

Post by mdp2021 »

palmotea wrote: post #46
OutOfHere wrote: post #33

Money laundering is an absurd concept. People should be free to transfer money to whoever they like, without permission. It is a fundamental purpose of money. To deny this purpose puts the validity of particular money into question. Putting up fences results in a very high rate of false positives. No wonder people use crypto as they should. If you want to go after cartels, then actually go after cartels. That's not w…

> Money laundering is an absurd concept. People should be free to transfer money to whoever they like, without permission. They got Al Capone for tax evasion, not any of the other obviously illegal stuff he was doing. I don't know the details, but I imagine it was because he put in effort to create an organization that made it difficult-to-impossible for the law-abiding feds to go after him directly. That's why it's…

> If you want to get all dogmatic against stuff like laws against money laundering, come up with an effective alternative

No, it's not just a matter of alternatives: it is also a matter of principles.

For example: in europe, I am unable to make online purchases with electronic money, as all the payment devices are tracked, matched with a personal identity - they cannot be unidentified as they could be only a few years ago. There existed occasional cards for online shopping - now they ask you a local telephone number, identity tied. This under the excuse of "countering money laundering". So there you have "privacy" vs "financial monitoring" - with immensely disproportionate effects in a farcical manouvre.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#84

Post by driverdan »

vorpalhex wrote: post #40

It surprises me how much Americans don't understand how deeply the cartel is in every transaction. Yes, sending money to Grandma to pay for a car is funding the cartel who probably got paid to make the car available. Grandma may even pay small direct bribes to the cartel just to be able to live her life. Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) or we can make Mexico a safe and excelle…

What you're suggesting is that all Mexicans suffer more because some money may somehow end up in the hands of the cartel. And that, for some reason, the US should help do this. That's absurd.

If you really want to eliminate the cartels make recreational drugs legal.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#85

Post by gruez »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #78
gruez wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why would anyone give a loan to someone who can't legally work? If it's really spouse that's the sole earner, why not have the spouse take out the loan?

Ability to work in a particular place and ability to repay a loan are not the same thing: 1) People get loans against assets literally all the time. 2) People can live and work in different places.

>1) People get loans against assets literally all the time.

Typically in these cases, there's actually a source of income. You have to pay back the loan, after all. Otherwise I struggle to imagine why anyone without income but with plenty of assets would take out a loan, and having such documentation requirements would greatly inconvenience them. All this feels like a fig leaf for allowing workers lacking work visas to live and work in the US, while turning a blind eye.

>2) People can live and work in different places.

Again, is this something that actually happens, or is it just a contrived scenario? Is there really a large contingent of people working Mexico and then commuting back and forth to the US? They can't get a loan in Mexico?

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#86

Post by bulbar »

alistairSH wrote: post #77
gruez wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He's also making it difficult/impossible for people without work visas to obtain auto loans [...] >They're banging the national security drum to make it unlivable here for some. But they're not supposed to be here in the first place? As for the people who are supposed to be here, but are collateral damage (ie. "which is destroying the used car market in latino communities") should we have sympathy for people in such…

But they're not supposed to be here in the first place? Like any other system, the purpose is what the system actually does. Especially a system that's been around for decades. We let them in, so they can work our fields and process our meat and whatever else. We shouldn't be surprised they want to buy cars, own business, and do other completely normal things.

I mean it makes sense. Let them come and work illegally, which is much cheaper and enables proper exploitation and then blame them for all kind of things and frame them as the bad guys that exploit the society.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#87

Post by throwaway894345 »

bix6 wrote: post #14
throwaway894345 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He definitely was debanked for political reasons and not because he was laundering money. What proof do you have? On what planet would major banks piss off the most capricious and unrestrained president in modern US history? What possible upside could there be for them? Trump (34 time fraud felon known for scamming everyone he can and using his position in government to massively enrich himself) was almost certainl…

My post was sarcastic. July 12th Capital One said they closed accounts due to AML concerns. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/capital-one-close-trump-ac...

My bad. I hear stuff like this all the time, not expressed sarcastically.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#88

Post by vorpalhex »

wombat-man wrote: post #53
vorpalhex wrote: post #40

It surprises me how much Americans don't understand how deeply the cartel is in every transaction. Yes, sending money to Grandma to pay for a car is funding the cartel who probably got paid to make the car available. Grandma may even pay small direct bribes to the cartel just to be able to live her life. Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) or we can make Mexico a safe and excelle…

I think it's possible, but pretty difficult. There's just too much money to be made selling drugs to the US.

I am against marijuana but I think it's clear legalizing it successfully starves the cartel of a lot of drug financing (and therefore we should both legalize it and have public campaigns against using it, ala alcohol).

Even the weird state based legalization has caused the cartels to pivot into things like avocado farming and mining.

Drug users don't seem to be overly preoccupied with what drug they use. Probably shifting them towards lower risk choices (pot, ketamine) and aggressively crack down on dealers is a winning combo.

(A lot of low level dealers are just graduated drug users but the line between buying and selling is a large one and dealers do immense harm while also shielding more dangerous criminals. Incentives against dealing incl aggressive enforcement are powerful at dissuading low level dealers, which in turn starves the criminal organizations.)

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#89

Post by throwaway894345 »

alistairSH wrote: post #12
throwaway894345 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He definitely was debanked for political reasons and not because he was laundering money. What proof do you have? On what planet would major banks piss off the most capricious and unrestrained president in modern US history? What possible upside could there be for them? Trump (34 time fraud felon known for scamming everyone he can and using his position in government to massively enrich himself) was almost certainl…

I think the parent post was sarcasm. Capital One closed hundreds of Trump's accounts in 2021. Trump is suing them, claiming it's a political debanking. CapOne fighting back because they feel their AML team was correct to close those accounts. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/capital-one-says-it...

Thanks, I misread the parents sarcasm for garden variety MAGA comment.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#90

Post by gruez »

alistairSH wrote: post #77
gruez wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He's also making it difficult/impossible for people without work visas to obtain auto loans [...] >They're banging the national security drum to make it unlivable here for some. But they're not supposed to be here in the first place? As for the people who are supposed to be here, but are collateral damage (ie. "which is destroying the used car market in latino communities") should we have sympathy for people in such…

But they're not supposed to be here in the first place? Like any other system, the purpose is what the system actually does. Especially a system that's been around for decades. We let them in, so they can work our fields and process our meat and whatever else. We shouldn't be surprised they want to buy cars, own business, and do other completely normal things.

>Like any other system, the purpose is what the system actually does. Especially a system that's been around for decades.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49260422

>We let them in, so they can work our fields and process our meat and whatever else. We shouldn't be surprised they want to buy cars, own business, and do other completely normal things.

So if the city/state/federal government lets a drug addict/dealer population to exist for too long (despite their best efforts at cracking down), they'll eventually get grandfathered in, and we can't enforce anti-money laundering regulations or dismantle their crack dens?

Post reply on HN