I think both sentiments have merit and are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Money stuff tends to follow power laws. The basic, beaurocratic checks probably dissuade 80% of offenders while only stopping maybe 20% of the volume.

Doing nothing would leave those 80% of offenders free to launder which seems bad. Meanwhile, it seems fair to call the measures mostly ineffective.

There’s also a cost to these measures. They frequently block or add friction for people just trying to do legitimate business. Is it worth it?