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No criminals involved in this kind of nefarious activities use Coinbase. The blockchain is all over the world and you can setup an exchange in your back yard if you wish, in middle of nowhere in Africa, for example. Good luck having Uncle Sam go there.

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Sure, but they're still going to want to _spend_ those coins at some point, and coins that can't be redeemed in the US are worth less than ones that can.

Pretty sure the USD can be redeemed anywhere in world, not just US.

This is why blockchains really only make this slightly more convenient.

Any USD retrieved from TotallyLegitExchangeLLC up in Belarus could still be marked as tainted if most of its blockchain transfers volume originate from illegal activity, so I feel in practice you would be limited to a narrow band of exchanges popular enough to have legitimate traffic and yet still unknown enough that they're still under the radar of their parents countries and/or the US' financial institutions.

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