Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot

That is not only about savings (3) but business transactions.

What crypto has shown long term stability and isn’t subject to the same forces that cause volatility in any currency?

Crypto's claim in this area is that could be cheaper than remittances in the traditional banking system. But remittance fees using traditional banking are already only 1.5% so we're not talking about saving massive amounts of money in most circumstances.

Which is probably why virtually nobody has switched to it for remittances.

2) Have you actually done it? There are many services that do this for cheap and fast. Your relatives don't have to open a crypto trading account and use banking to convert the money back into a currency they can use to purchase stuff, they can simply take cash from a chain store, the post office or a local bank branch.

3) When the local currency goes through hyperinflation people store their money in USD, EUR or GOLD. Putting money into crypto is an extra step that don't have to be there doesn't add any value because needs to go through a digital channel like a bank and when shits the fan banks can be PIA. Your local Change office in the mall or the guy at the street who sells and buys USD/EUR/GOLD tend to be more reliable.

The UK banking system has had chip&pin for 20+ years, has had (Europe-wide?) instant payments for at least a decade.

Banking numbers in the UK are push not pull, you cannot take someone else's money just because you have their bank number. *

Payments require CVV (and have done for almost 30 years) and often additional 2fa verification through an app for larger payments. "Card not present" transactions are particular guarded against.

The regularatory framework is such that the banks must absorb the cost of fraud, unless they can demonstrate the customer has been particular negligent. The average banking customer in the UK does not live in fear of "identity theft", and does not own "identity insurance" or similar protection packages, the legal framework provides protection.

Solving the problem for international transfers simply requires greater international cooperation, not a different technical solution. It is a particular shame of Brexit that the UK has lost it's ability to lead in this area, because Europe generally has had a similar transformation over the past 20 years.

Expanding that banking cooperation to bring in more trusted countries would further reduce the cost of international remittance.

Someone trying to sell a technical solution to a social problem ought to always be treated with extra skepticism.

* Some pedant will point out direct debits, but that is only available to trusted providers, and is backed up by the Direct Debit Guarentee, so the risk won't fall to the customer if things do go wrong.

Credit card fees are high in bank-friendly jurisdictions. Not in most jurisdictions. PayPal only came about because the banking system in the US is so utter crap - that doesn't mean that it's bad as bad elsewhere.

The crappiness of banks is contingent on bad regulation. The crappiness of crypto is inherent in the sub-par technology: adding a constraint (eg permissionlessness) is costly.

The reason 'tradfi' doesn't offer T+0 has nothing to do with technology (or lack of). It's an intentional policy choice and not due to technical limitations.

LOL. Here's a novel idea: take debt, and chop it into fungible pieces that can be traded (a process we could call "securitisation"). Let's call it a bond. Or: Take equity, and chop it into fungible pieces that can be traded. Let's call it a share. That's impossible to do without crypto. Right? Right???

HN is largely pro-status-quo. Deferring to parasitic gatekeepers is how things get done in the worldview of the HN mindset, so this reaction shouldn't surprise you.

When evaluating a given action from the HN zeitgeist, a decent rubric is: if a Western government authorizes it, it is universally good. If a Western government discourages it, it is Hitler.

Further, and importantly: if the action in question is determined to be Hitler, it is not merely bad; it is unthinkable (because the mere act of considering it would make you, the thinker, also Hitler), and therefore not worthy of being considered an option in the first place.

The CFO bought the prepaid cards at a discount and then transferred the whole amount to the company account.

Maybe there’s more to it but it doesn’t sound like it was very sophisticated and seems inevitable they would be caught eventually.

Yes, you're not allowed to do that under someone else's name, that's what the crime is.

> can't be bothered to prove the original crime

The entire point of money laundering is to make it as difficult as possible to find the original crime or connect it. In an environment of anonymous payments, how do you prove X made a payment to Y?

It's basically an extension of anti-fencing law, which is a pretty old principle. You're not allowed to help people fence stolen goods, and it's not a defence to look the other way. Money has to be treated specially because it's fungible and not a "good", but the principle is the same. If you were running a "cars bought for cash" scheme and refusing to check if any of the cars were stolen, I would assume you'd eventually be prosecuted for that.

Further, as to prosecuting the thefts, for all we know that is the next step, or they have already done that and secured the cooperation of those conspirators as witnesses.

It's really weird that the people behind Epoch, are the same that one can find peacefully protesting in many major cities against the treatment they receive in China.

I have to say, their behaviour in recent years made me rethink their claims about illegal organ harvesting. I know both things, they being a hateful cult and being oppressed and killed by the Chinese regime, can be true, but their alignment with far right groups and conspiracy theorists is hard to overlook.

Such as?

Excuse for doubting, but people - especially people on this board - tend to use those kind of words and accusations whenever there's somebody that has a different opinion on some issue.

I've only seen stuff published by Epoch Times occasionally and those times they've had a much tamer profile than what you're describing.

Maybe they are full of rhetoric, but their propaganda is effective, to the point which you can predict people's narrative based on the recent publications from The Epoch Times, though it mainly effects under-educated Chinese-speaking families who can't consume more established English newspaper/media.

Being a far-right (See the description on Wikipedia [1]) media, they mirrors the narrative of other English far-right medias, and they forwards those narratives to Chinese-reading consumers. I guess that's their business model.

Also, "Shen Yun" is not Chinese culture, rather the Chinese culture in "Shen Yun" was used as props to add a dose of eastern mystery to attract western audience. Very nice marketing I might add.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times