On one hand, this seems almost like a Spinal Tap sort of situation. If you want to make it illegal to evade the reporting requirements by withdrawing $8,000 repeatedly, then write the law to require reporting $8,000, or whatever amount you're after.

On the other hand, the law is written such that it only applies to people who are aware of the law and intended to circumvent reporting. It seems like an easy case that withdrawing $1.7 million in increments under $10,000 is intentional, and that the guy who was Speaker of the House at the time that the law was updated by Congress would know that the law exists.

As is often the case, it seems like a bad person violating a bad law and it's hard to get worked up over either.