A rant of fiscal insanity

Homicidal_Squirrel · Jun 19, 2014

Dannyalcatraz said:
I'm not a fan of ATMs, personally, but would you honestly feel comfortable depositing $5K standing at one?

Yes. A lot of banks have ATMs inside as well as outside. You could deposit it inside and not have to deal with bank employees.

Umbran · Jun 19, 2014

Homicidal_Squirrel said:
Sure, why not? You're putting money into an account. The problem is how you got the money, not who deposits it.

Take your typical money laundering scheme. Criminal J has some illegally-acquired cash, entirely off the books. He wants to launder it. What he really want is to give it to someone, who will then give it back to him, under the guise of some legitimate-seeming transaction.

So, Criminal J deposits the money in Assistant's account. Assistant then "buys" something from Criminal J. He never actually delivers those goods, but this transaction is now on the books, looks entirely legal, and Criminal can deposit that money into his own account along with normal business.

But, someone looks at Assistant's books. And there's a bunch of money, the origin of which is dubious - Assistant has more cash flow out than they take in. Assistant then clearly has some off-the-books income, which the Cops want to figure out. If that deposit was anonymous cash, the trail stops at Assistant. If the bank requires that cash transactions come from known accounts, then the trail goes back to Criminal J. Does Crtiminal J want that? Heck no!

So, again I ask - if you are doing something financially hinkey, do you want your real name, address, and SSN attached to it? Probably not.

delericho · Jun 19, 2014

Umbran said:
Stop at the bank staff level. They probably don't know any such thing. The guy is not a customer...

Fair point. I was still operating with the quaint notion that the bank staff would know the friend (who does hold the account). Of course, that's pretty absurd these days.

sabrinathecat · Jun 19, 2014

Yes, Janx, your reply made sense. Many of the others did not, or were clearly distorting the events I described. Thank you.

The actual amount was only $500. the $5000 was just a number I brought up--not uncommon with some businesses, and chicken-feed in terms of money laundering.
Chase is proud to say it is the only bank that has instituted this silly and inconvenient policy.

Hopefully they remain the only one.
Better still, maybe they'll revoke it.

I've had other negative experiences with Chase, but no intention of going into details.

Homicidal_Squirrel · Jun 19, 2014

Umbran said:
Take your typical money laundering scheme. Criminal J has some illegally-acquired cash, entirely off the books. He wants to launder it. What he really want is to give it to someone, who will then give it back to him, under the guise of some legitimate-seeming transaction.

So, Criminal J deposits the money in Assistant's account. Assistant then "buys" something from Criminal J. He never actually delivers those goods, but this transaction is now on the books, looks entirely legal, and Criminal can deposit that money into his own account along with normal business.

But, someone looks at Assistant's books. And there's a bunch of money, the origin of which is dubious - Assistant has more cash flow out than they take in. Assistant then clearly has some off-the-books income, which the Cops want to figure out. If that deposit was anonymous cash, the trail stops at Assistant. If the bank requires that cash transactions come from known accounts, then the trail goes back to Criminal J. Does Crtiminal J want that? Heck no!

So, again I ask - if you are doing something financially hinkey, do you want your real name, address, and SSN attached to it? Probably not.

Yes, I know how money laundering works. I get that someone may not want to have their name on an account. I get what you're trying to say, but like I said, how is making the person that deposits the money have an account stop money laundering? The assistant can be the one to deposit the money into his own account. You give him some cash, he deposits it, then he pays you out for some fake product/service/whatever to make it seem as if you had a legal transaction. The money still gets laundered. The problem is that it is money acquired through illegal means.

As for the the cops finding out, and the trail ending with the assistant? Generally, cops offer deals to these guys to find the bigger criminals. What's to stop the money launderer from saying "It was Umbran's money. He's a drug dealer, and it's his money that has been going through my account(s)"?

Also, when you are laundering money, you generally take a percentage of the money, so you would actually have less money coming out of the account than going in. Or at least going back to the criminal that wants their money to come out clean. People don't launder money for free.

Homicidal_Squirrel · Jun 19, 2014

sabrinathecat said:
I've had other negative experiences with Chase, but no intention of going into details.

I used to have bank accounts with Chase. They're pretty damn terrible, which is why I "used to" have accounts with them. I withdrew all my money and closed all the accounts I had with them after one particularly annoying incident. Not that other banks aren't bad, but at least I haven't had as bad an experience as I've had with Chase.

Blackbrrd · Jun 19, 2014

For me, it's totally foreign to go to a physical location to transfer money. I would just use my banks web page. Why waste time getting to the bank? I can go months without using cash.

Umbran · Jun 19, 2014

Homicidal_Squirrel said:
The assistant can be the one to deposit the money into his own account. You give him some cash, he deposits it, then he pays you out for some fake product/service/whatever to make it seem as if you had a legal transaction.

Money laundering is typically a repeated activity, not a one-shot transaction. So, now you are physically meeting with your assistant to hand them a big wad of cash on a regular basis. If your Assistant is under investigation, this is about as good at giving the cops your name and address.

Can you construct a baroque system of dead-drops or minion-enabled handoffs to get around this? Sure. But now your money-laundering scheme has several possible points of failure, and is a pain in the neck. It isn't like the bank policy stops *all* money laundering. But it makes you work for it, possibly make you consider looking elsewhere, and will stop casual abuse of the system.

What's to stop the money launderer from saying "It was Umbran's money. He's a drug dealer, and it's his money that has been going through my account(s)"?

If I'm a drug dealer big enough to need laundering services, I have goons, minions, and such. The assistant will live in fear that goons will do some really ugly things to him should he squeal.

Also, when you are laundering money, you generally take a percentage of the money, so you would actually have less money coming out of the account than going in. Or at least going back to the criminal that wants their money to come out clean. People don't launder money for free.

So? All that's required is that the Assistant has more coming out than comes in legitimately. That the numbers don't match *exactly* doesn't stop the IRS from noticing.

Janx · Jun 19, 2014

Blackbrrd said:
For me, it's totally foreign to go to a physical location to transfer money. I would just use my banks web page. Why waste time getting to the bank? I can go months without using cash.

agreed.

I'm not wholly sure what cash is, but I think I understood enough of it to get the gist

Homicidal_Squirrel · Jun 19, 2014

Umbran said:
Money laundering is typically a repeated activity, not a one-shot transaction. So, now you are physically meeting with your assistant to hand them a big wad of cash on a regular basis. If your Assistant is under investigation, this is about as good at giving the cops your name and address.

Can you construct a baroque system of dead-drops or minion-enabled handoffs to get around this? Sure. But now your money-laundering scheme has several possible points of failure, and is a pain in the neck. It isn't like the bank policy stops *all* money laundering. But it makes you work for it, possibly make you consider looking elsewhere, and will stop casual abuse of the system.

The bank policy doesn't stop any laundering of money. Sabrina had a problem depositing $500. Who is going to waste their time laundering $500? No one. You have to be a real stupid criminal to do that. That's pocket change. The IRS will never know that you got $500 from selling drugs if you keep those $500 in your wallet. Guys that are going to launder money, do so with a lot more money. What if you were going to deposit $100 or $20 into someone else's account? That's not stopping criminals It's annoying regular customers.

If I'm a drug dealer big enough to need laundering services, I have goons, minions, and such. The assistant will live in fear that goons will do some really ugly things to him should he squeal.

Sure, but guys that launder money, especially large sums for various criminals, have their own goons to protect them. They can also get some type of protection from police, depending on how good of a catch you are for police.

So? All that's required is that the Assistant has more coming out than comes in legitimately. That the numbers don't match *exactly* doesn't stop the IRS from noticing.

A good money launderer usually has a good amount of money and legit businesses in order to clean the money. They have plenty of legit expenses on the books. They have plenty of money going in. It's not going to be easily noticeable. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's not as easy as it sounds. In any case, the original amount that Sabrina mentioned ($500) wouldn't need to be laundered, but if it was, I highly doubt anyone would become suspicious about it. $5,000 isn't worth it, either. So the Chase policy doesn't really help. It doesn't stop anything. It only inconveniences it's customers. The criminals? They're used to having to jump through hoops to not get caught.