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tektektektektek t1_j00jrq7 wrote

Reply to comment by ennuinerdog in Binance CEO Facing Possible Money Laundering Charges by habichuelacondulce

It's not nearly as opaque as cash. You're far better off stuffing €500 notes (yes, they exist) into a walking cane if you don't want to be traced. In fact:

> The note is being phased out due to concerns of widespread use for illegal purposes. Most printing of new €500 notes ceased in 2019, although existing notes will remain legal tender until further notice.

What crypto is good for is being stolen. Silly people store digital wallets on insecure storage, even sillier people let other people "hold" their digital assets. And that is easily taken from the safety of a living room chair on the other side of the planet.

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shmeggt t1_j024k0c wrote

Stuffing EUR500 notes into a cane or suitcase is not money laundering. That's just moving cash around. The difficult thing is the actual laundering part....

Let's say you steal €25,000,000 in cash from a bank and you get away with it. There are no suspects... you're free. Now you have a problem: it's easy to spend small amounts of cash, but eyes will be raised if you try and buy a car or house with cash. It's also really inconvenient to use cash for other things, like plane tickets or hotel rooms. You need to get this money into a bank, and the bank is going to run a source-of-funds investigation on your €25M. This is where laundering comes into play. The easiest way to do this is to start/buy a cash-based business, like a laundromat. No one is going to check the size or busyness of your laundromat. So you do $500 a week of real business and you deposit $10,000. Unfortunately, that's going to take you almost 50 years, so as your funds grow, you need to launder the money faster and faster.

With crypto, you can do this a LOT easier and faster. Find a crypto exchange that doesn't do AML/KYC (there are quite a few of them) and deposit this money. Many of them will be happy to take your €25M. Now, start moving your money from exchange to exchange, from currency to currency. Do a lot of trading across different cryptos and exchanges and personal wallets.

Now, you just need to identify a set of cryptos and would have provided a huge return during this period so you can "explain" how you got a great return. Now, get an account on a more reputable exchanges (with AML/KYC), and withdraw into your bank. Money laundered!

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throwawayainteasy t1_j02guip wrote

Or "sell" a few NFTs for ridiculous prices that an "anonymous" wallet buys.

Given how arbitrary the pricing is, art has been used for money laundering for a very long time, and NFTs have made that even easier. You don't need to even get galleries involved to give yourself some facade of credibility.

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ItsCharlieDay t1_j05ri0r wrote

Art work is one of the oldest money laundering methods in the world

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neva5eez t1_j04b3z6 wrote

In BC Canada they just walk into casinos with hockey bags full of cash, play a few hands and walk out with a nice big fat cheque..

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iRedditonFacebook t1_j0509za wrote

>With crypto, you can do this a LOT easier and faster

People who don't figure this out this are usually the ones losing all their money and act surprised when someone runs off with millions.

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YAMAGLACHI t1_j02yakp wrote

Give me $25mil of currency and Ill show you how to live without the tiniest bit of concern for the remainder of my life. Its exceptionally easy to use cash to pay for everything in daily life. IF you have half a brain.

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shmeggt t1_j02z0lo wrote

That's very true if you want to live modestly. If that was the case, you probably wouldn't have stolen $25M. You can easily buy a cheap used car with cash.... you can pay rent on an apartment with cash...

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YAMAGLACHI t1_j032ypj wrote

Whats modestly? With that amount of money you can afford payments on everything and would never have to own a thing. And you dont have to live modestly. All of which can be made through CCs and cashiers checks. You only run into problems when you try to buy outright or deposit money into a bank. You lump sum youre toast. You make small, regular deposits you get flagged for structuring. You keep cash on hand and/or spread out in safety deposit boxes. I can live more than modestly on cash and CCs. And I can still grow the money off the books.

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[deleted] t1_j00wiae wrote

Yeah but it's a lot more convenient to wash crypto than the old cash-in-a-walking-stick trick.

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ThisAltDoesNotExist t1_j01avqk wrote

Except the blockchain is an indelible record of transactions. Cash has no clear origin and you just need a convincing story without other evidence that disproves it. This? This is from my cash only business. We're doing great!

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[deleted] t1_j02et2n wrote

[deleted]

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ThisAltDoesNotExist t1_j02lmsn wrote

Without in person interactions yes, but there are entire books about law enforcement compromising wallets over time and mapping illicit transactions. Monero was explicitly encrypted to prevent tracking and preserve anonymity. So they banned it in the UK.

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genjitenji t1_j02p1ra wrote

Monero is completely banned in the UK? Damn that sucks hard.

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shmeggt t1_j024v60 wrote

While the physical cash has no chain of custody, when making a large purchase or depositing large amounts of cash, the bank is going to need to understand source-of-funds.

This is the hard things about cash... it's hard to spend in large amounts. You really need a bank account when spending a large amount of money.

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ThisAltDoesNotExist t1_j026afr wrote

Which is what I meant by "you just need a convincing story" and then described the most common method of money laundering.

It is also very difficult to spend a large quantity of cryptocurrency.

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shmeggt t1_j027cbi wrote

You don't have to spend the crypto... You just have to launder it, which is far, far easier because of how many cryptos exist.

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ThisAltDoesNotExist t1_j027nn5 wrote

Nonsense. The moment you try to get it into the regular banking system to spend it you face the same questions of origin.

You may as well say you don't need to spend the cash, you can just leave it in a safe.

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shmeggt t1_j028nex wrote

Here's what you do....

"I'm a crypto investor. I trade quite a lot and have been quite successful in doing that. I invested $500 in LaunderCoin which went up by 8,000,000%. I trade a lot looking for the next great coin."

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jtmarshiii t1_j026zp9 wrote

You also have to physically hand it to someone... making law enforcement's job easier.

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Rawniew54 t1_j01dl4s wrote

Don't even need a story just spend it discreetly or launder through fake business

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jtmarshiii t1_j026uan wrote

What do you do with the cash? This means you have to do a face-to-face transaction with is 1,000% more dangerous since this is how law enforcement will try and catch you. Everyone thinks cash is the most anonymous but it takes physical interactions and high risk of losing cash if on your person.

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