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Comment by MichaelGG | Hacker News Reader

Just a reminder when talking about this with people: Money laundering is not an actual crime that harms anyone. It's a made-up thing to make prosecutors lives easier by lowering the bar on what they can go after people for. We need to undo the marketing that governments push out and media plays along with. It's sad that not telling the government your every financial move is seen as wrong in any remotely free society.

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Money laundering itself might not be something that harms anyone, the problem is it's often done to conceal actions that have harmed someone or will harm someone. If I'm selling drugs or weapons, someone is going to start asking where all this money came from. It's easier for my legal case to say "my laundromat" or "my car wash" than it is for me to say "selling crack and Glocks".

You could make the case that money laundering itself should not be considered a crime, but it should be strongly considered with other evidence of wrong-doing. There are very few legitimate reasons to go out of your way to conceal the source of your income, so in doing so you're already behaving suspiciously.

Like it's not illegal to swerve back and forth in your car without ever leaving your lane, but if a cop see you doing it you're probably going to get pulled over. Because the only reasons you'd be swerving like that tend to be actual illegal activities.

> Like it's not illegal to swerve back and forth in your car without ever leaving your lane, but if a cop see you doing it you're probably going to get pulled over.

Well traffic law has similar catch-all like 'disorderly conduct' laws: 'careless driving'. Up to the officer's discretion, basically.

Cultivating, processing & producing drugs shouldn't be legal in the first place. Governments create cartels by making it illegal. In Mexico, cartels also run local some governments, states & also control many activities such as cattle sales, used auto parts, metals, meat, fish, flowers, etc... if you dare to buy from an unauthorized supplier or sell to someone other than them, you are beaten, extorted, or killed. On top of that they also kidnap, steal and require monthly payments to let businesses operate.

Terrorism is state funded and preventing laundering won't do much.

Laundering helps people in countries like Mexico, where a large part of the tax revenue goes into the hands of few. Why fund a state that is run by gangsters?

Your point is taken, but surely you will agree that there are at least some ways to make money surreptitiously that should be illegal?

It sounds like you're trying to argue against the person you're replying to, but aren't you both saying essentially the same thing? It's a made up thing that makes prosecutors lives easier when they're trying to catch somebody committing a real crime.

What does "made up" mean?

Someone who launders money for a hitman or human trafficker is enabling the hitman/trafficker's business.

If you help bury a body, you're guilty of something. If you help clean a violent criminal's money, you're guilty of something.

The launderer's guilt is only "made up" in-so-far as murder or human trafficking are "made up".

(Re: Drugs, sure. The correct solution here is to legalize drugs.)

Every law is a made-up thing. There's no inherent laws of man that govern the world divined by God himself.

What the parent is trying to argue is that the entire idea of money laundering should be forgotten and there should be no negative public perception of money laundering. What I'm arguing is sure, maybe people shouldn't go to jail for money laundering by itself, but there are zero legitimate reasons to launder money. The very fact that someone has gone to any length to hide the source of their income means they've committed a crime. Not the crime of money laundering, but the crime of whatever they did to earn the money. Because if they didn't commit a crime to earn it, they wouldn't go through the trouble of hiding it. Money laundering is probable cause for further investigation.

His argument sounds to me like people who argue that since the Constitution doesn't say the government can collect taxes, that means taxation is theft and we shouldn't pay them. It's the libertarian ideal that money is private property, humans are inherently good (unless they've won an election), and laws don't apply to you if you just believe it hard enough. Unfortunately that's not the way the world works. In reality, where there is smoke there is fire, and where there is money laundering there is someone concealing a crime.

Really? Zero? What if I work in something I'm embarrassed about and want to front it through something more respectable? Or what about the simple idea that I shouldn't have to tell anyone about my income sources?

I agree that a front is a reason for someone to be suspicious. Find a laundromat doing a million a day? Sure, investigate them. But that alone should not be a crime.

>what about the simple idea that I shouldn't have to tell anyone about my income sources?

That's not even an argument. That's the lack of an argument. That's throwing a temper tantrum and saying "but I don't wanna!"

It's a sovereign citizen argument and I love seeing YouTube videos of people telling the police that exact thing.

> It's a made up thing that makes prosecutors lives easier when they're trying to catch somebody committing a real crime.

“Crime” is not a thing that exists aside from laws defining them; all crimes defined in law are equally “made up” (and, for the same reason, equally “real crimes”.)

They don't need AML stuff to have this. If someone's laundromat is doing record income, sure, fine, hang out and watch them a bit and see if they look like a lead for a real crime.

I'd also note that encryption is "not be something that harms anyone" but "often done to conceal actions ... harm".

I actually had a line in there that said "Unlike encryption, there are very few legitimate reasons..." but I took it out because it seemed like too specific of an example so if someone brought it up I would argue it then, and not before.

This particular money laundering debate is very unlike the encryption debate. Actually, you could argue that money laundering is a very specific type of encryption, you're just encrypting the source of your income by adding noise instead of encrypting digital data.

Let's see just some of the reasons you'd use encryption:

So bad people can't find your passwords

So bad people can't get into your bank account

So bad people can't see what websites you've been visiting

So bad people can't see your pictures

So bad people can't steal your intellectual property

And why would you need this type of privacy?

So criminals and bad people can't injure you using your private information

So corrupt governments can't see what information you've been reading/writing/sharing

So you can have some assurance that your email/social media/etc accounts are fully controlled by you, and likewise for those you're interacting with

Now let's see some of the reasons you'd launder money:

So the government can't see where you got the money.

That's it.

And why would you need this type of privacy?

So the government doesn't know you committed a crime to get that money.

That's it.

People don't launder money because they're ashamed to admit they work at Microsoft. People don't launder money to hide their employer from criminals who want to hurt them. People don't launder money to hide it from other citizens. People don't launder money from legitimate businesses. People launder money so the government doesn't know that they got the money illegally. That's it.

There's a lot of legitimate reasons to encrypt various things, and no one has ever argued that encryption is only ever used for legal and good purposes. The argument is that while encryption is sometimes used for crimes, the good things it enables outweigh the bad things. But there's only one reason to launder money, and that's because you earned it illegally.

Same could be said about a lot of things that most people would agree should be illegal, like tax evasion. Yes, you are not hurting anyone directly, but we as a society have decided that you shouldn't be able to do that.

Can you give me a reason why money laundering should be legal? It seems that the only reason why you'd want to do it is because you're covering up for other illegal activities. Taking money from one source and making it seems like it comes from another source seems exactly like fraud to me.

Taxation is more of a tricky topic, but yes, we all agree everyone owes taxes so not paying them is a crime.

But money "laundering"? Who is the fraud against? What if I make a ton of money by running my own camsite. But I want to pretend I'm a successful software company. So my camsite buys a license from my software company that eats up all the profit. There's nothing wrong with any of this.

Doing the same, but with an illegal source, should be just as legal. Go after the real crimes (e.g. killing people for money).

No one in the history of ever has ever laundered money to try to convince the government that their legitimate enterprise was in fact a completely different legitimate enterprise. In fact that could be illegal too if you were using that information to convince investors that your software company was more profitable than it was. That is indeed fraud.

I mean, by your own argument fleeing the scene of a crime isn't hurting anyone. I mean, I didn't run anyone over while I was fleeing. Sure, I may have shot that guy, but the simple act of running away after I shot him didn't hurt anyone. Because apparently it doesn't matter that the act of running away from the scene is directly linked to the crime I just committed, and it doesn't matter that the only way you can prove I shot him is by catching me running away and then comparing my gun to the bullet inside the victim. Fleeing the scene of a crime is just a made up law. There's no victim.

Go after the real crimes! Like the one I just committed that you found out about because you saw me running away with a gun in my hand...

Yes, exactly - sounds like we are in agreement. Fleeing the scene isn't hurting anyone in general (might be a traffic issue though). It'd be unfair to tack on an extra charge of "ran away after murdering someone".

It's still (negative) evidence against someone, and if you see someone running down the street, a cop is perfectly justified to look in the direction they came and see if it looks like a crime was just committed.

To the point: People should be completely free to move their money around however they please, without having to tell anyone about it, full stop. If this attracts suspicion, fine, so do a lot of things.

The only thing I really have a disagreement with is the way I perceive your tone. Specifically "It's a made-up thing... We need to undo the marketing...".

What I'm trying to argue is, sure maybe money laundering shouldn't be a crime by itself, but it's not victimless and pure. There is no legitimate reason to launder money. Your claim in another comment that you might be embarrassed by your income source is not related in any way to money laundering. Money laundering isn't hiding the source of your income from people who might pick on you, it's hiding your source of income from the government. And the government only cares where you got your money if your source of income is illegal. They're not looking at your job and laughing at you. They're not going to send a Secret Service agent to your house and call you names. They're going to say "is that illegal? nope... did he pay his taxes? yep." and move on.

To be clear: lying to your wife about where you got your money is not money laundering. That's completely legal. Money laundering is telling the government you earned your money from a completely different enterprise to hide the fact that you obtained it illegally.

You know actually researching this and arguing it here has completely changed my opinion. I'm now 100% comfortable with the idea of money laundering being illegal and people going to jail for it. I'm not even joking. I'm changing my stance. Money laundering should be a crime. It is, at the very least, obstruction of justice.

The implications of the mindset of "money laundering is a crime" is the problem. It's how we get this invasive government reporting requirements on our own money - which apply whether or not you are actually laundering. It is how we end up with these $10K rules, and people getting hit for structuring. (Which is even more absurd. Create a law to make people get reported at $10K. Then create another law so if they do less than $10K suspiciously, that's a crime, too!)

So, if AML tactics were not so draconian and far-fetched, if it was just a tacked-on charge (like how they'll throw wire fraud on to everything), then it'd be an annoyance and unfair, but not so harmful. Instead, we have this fearful environment because people think laundering is some terrible crime, and that makes it more acceptable to have things like civil forfeiture.

Money laundering is a crime because only criminals have to hide the source of their income when it's paid in bank notes issued by the government. Don't like it? Ask your employer to pay you in untraceable gold doubloons instead of government-issued bank notes.

It's been a great conversation. It's rare that someone with a strong but controversial opinion on the Internet sticks around to defend it when they've been challenged. I respect your viewpoint even if I disagree with it.

>Taxation is more of a tricky topic, but yes, we all agree everyone owes taxes so not paying them is a crime.

So... If someone does (perhaps completely legal) contract work, accepts payment in BTC and makes their purchases with BTC, how are you going to know what they owe in taxes?

The victimless crime argument has never been very persuasive for me. Its lack of persuasion stems from how such things 'cover' a much wider gamut than a few cherry picked situations, and how it ignores the very real victims that are often created by the activities.

Money laundering, by its definition, is the act of concealing the source or purpose of funds for the purposes of evading taxation or concealing other illegal activities.

So the folks that get screwed by depositing 9500 in cash each week from their business were doing something wrong?

No they aren't. But they are doing something that criminals also do, so that generally merits investigation. Consider the older male birdwatcher sitting on a park bench watching a school playground with binoculars hoping to see a rare Kirtland Warbler.

So you have to consider how rare it is to deposit $9,500 week after week after week, versus depositing between $500, and $12,500 in a reasonable spectrum of values over the weeks. And even if you have a business that pays exactly $9,500 a week, then when someone asks you "How is it that you always have $9,500 to deposit each week in cash." and you give an explanation of your local ice cream van which buys $5,000 in ice cream each week and generally sells out, which at the prices on your van comes to $9,500. Then that investigator says "Ah, ok, thank you very much." and leaves you alone because you haven't done anything wrong. They might pass along that information to the IRS which would expect to see a K-1 or a Schedule C for an owner operator business that was doing $9,500 a week in gross revenue. And if for some reason they had gone that far and found that the person dutifully reported their income and paid such taxes that were due. Then again, there would be nothing to say or do.

If you look at the text of the bill you will see that the definitions are pretty clear:

   “(B) knowing that the transaction—

   “(i) conceals or disguises, or is intended to conceal or disguise, the
     nature, source, location, ownership, or control of the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity; or

   “(ii) avoids, or is intended to avoid, a transaction reporting requirement under State or Federal law,”;
       and

   (2) in paragraph (2)(B), by striking “knowing that” and all that follows through “Federal law,” 
       and inserting the following:

   “(B) knowing that—

   “(i) the monetary instrument or funds involved in the transportation, transmission, or transfer 
     represent the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity; and

   “(ii) the transportation, transmission, or transfer—

   “(I) conceals or disguises, or is intended to conceal or disguise, the nature, source, location, 
    ownership, or control of the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity; or

   “(II) avoids, or is intended to avoid, a transaction reporting requirement under State or Federal law,”.

 Basically you can use cash, bitcoin, and gift cards all you want for *legitimate* purposes, it is only when you use them to conceal or transact illegal activities do they become 'money laundering'.

Except you shouldn't have to justify it. Using your example, watching kids is legal. So you should be able to go sit there and say "I like watching kids". Now maybe that's suspicious, but apart from people then watching you, there shouldn't be any repercussions.

At any rate, it's bad enough there are reporting laws. Then they make it illegal to try to avoid reporting laws? That's just an extra layer of absurdity.

Give me a single scenario where money laundering should be considered legal.

Money laundering is not the term we should be using. Money laundering only applies where the source of money is dirty.

I can give you many examples where "having at least $10,000" should be considered legal. Money laundering is evidence of a crime, it should not be a crime itself.

Is it illegal to have $10,000? If you're referring to financial reporting requirements, the law is just that the bank has to report when you make large deposits (and I think withdrawals as well) it's not a crime, though it is a crime to intentionally deposit multiple amounts less than $10,000 to try and evade the reporting requirements. If you're referring to civil asset forfeiture or something, then I agree work needs to be done to reign in the practice.

It can be illegal doing things even with less than $10K at a time, due to structuring laws. Your business insurance only covers up to $10K cash, so you make deposits of $9500 each week? Cool, enjoy your legal problems.

And you should not have to report the money you carry if you, for instance, travel.

"Money laundering" is illegal by definition, so this is a meaningless question. Try rephrasing it.

I meant a scenario of an activity currently considered money laundering the OP thinks should not be illegal. "should" is the operative word here. Does that make things more clear?

I think the actual money laundering should be illegal. What bothers me is that, in chasing money laundering cases, it makes what is supposed simple things, very painful. I'm US lawful permanent resident, but European citizen too. Now, because of US regulations, pretty much ALL European banks do not want anything to do with me. If I ask to open a bank account, they'd rather not to. If I want to open an investment account in EU, they pretty much say "we do not want your business". If I transfer money from MY account in EU into MY account in US, I most likely have to JUSTIFY it. If I ask for a wire transfer, some foreign financial institution respond "oh, you are a US person, we don't want to deal with the reporting requirements". It's like the fight of terrorists: I think we all agree we should prevent the next 9/11. But when you have to pass through TSA, you cannot bring your laptop, you need to handover all your passwords, etc - even though terrorism is "illegal", you wonder if we are fighting it right.

In literally every single scenario? It should never be illegal to conceal your actions. Yeah, this makes prosecutors' jobs harder. That's the cost of a free society.

So, injecting illegally-gotten dollars into a business to inflate revenue and so you can spend it shouldn't be illegal? Lying on federal documents and committing fraud?

If my business wants to sell me a token for $5M, that should be my right. The real crime is how I got that $5M, not that I decided to put it into another business.

Where's the fraud? If I want to run a pizza shop and record a million orders to myself that I never actually deliver, so what?

If you record a million orders to yourself, that's not money laundering. Though, unless you already paid tax on that money you're using to purchase the "pizzas," you are committing tax evasion. Because you're essentially giving pre-tax dollars to your private company.

Until the million orders are paid with by the money I made illegally?

I mean yeah. Money laundering is just tax evasion and fraud with illegally gotten money. We treat it differently than regular tax evasion because it's a more serious crime, much like how pre-meditated homicide is treated differently than regular homicide. Does that make sense?

No. You've got the tax evasion (if any - certainly you could set it up so you're paying the full taxes) plus the illegal activity, so two crimes already there.

In fact, it's less serious for society if you launder it, because then you're paying taxes on money you wouldn't otherwise pay taxes on.

Why would you launder money if not to hide something? Moving money around, itself, is not illegal either.

Why use encryption if not hiding something?

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