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Bad title, this is Office Space levels of misunderstanding. The claim of money laundering is by some author that has no idea what he's talking about. All it really is: scammers use Amazon to cash out stolen credit cards. That's not money laundering, it's just fraud.

The money isn't even clean if they're using the wrong SSN.

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You're absolutely right, the described scam is not money laundering.

I think you could, however, use a very similar method to actually launder money. The SSN/account would need to be accurate; the taxes would need to be paid; and the contents/price would need to be a plausible if low-quality example of the typical self-published book. You'd pay people dirty cash to buy copies of the book, and/or use single-use debit cards bought with dirty cash.

If I we're to use my ill-gotten gains to buy cryptocurrencies, I could, at a small loss, buy Amazing gift cards from independent sites which accept crypto. At that point, aim straight up money launderin

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