[HN Gopher] Moving Bricks: Money-laundering practices in the onl...
___________________________________________________________________
Moving Bricks: Money-laundering practices in the online scam
industry
Author : speckx
Score : 195 points
Date : 2024-09-27 13:03 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (globalchinapulse.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (globalchinapulse.net)
| teddyh wrote:
| Hit piece on Telegram?
| eitland wrote:
| No, not as far as I have seen.
|
| It seems they only describe that Telegram has been used
| extensively by criminals for the same reasons everyone else use
| it:
|
| Great ux, reasonable privacy (for what we needed).
|
| Note: all that is in a flux now. Personally I trust Telegram
| less now as it seems the same exceptions the French has made
| for themselves can also be used by russia or any other
| terrorist regime.
| goatsi wrote:
| The assumption has been that Telegram provided significantly
| more access to Russia years ago, as it remains unblocked
| (with channels even run by the government), and Pavel Durov
| wasn't arrested when he visited Russia after laws were passed
| that would apply to Telegram but he claims they were refusing
| to follow.
| skinkestek wrote:
| That is a good argument.
|
| I have however thought that the actual reason was because
| Russia depends on it.
|
| They seriously even use it to coordinate artillery strikes
| although lately I have seen evidence they now sometimes use
| Discord.
|
| I am not sure, and being convinced that Pavel Durov has
| actually visited Russia several times the last few years
| make me question my assumptions.
|
| However I still see Russian opposition being more scared
| now after Pavels visit to France because now the terms of
| service has been updated to tell us that they will ahare
| our ip address and phone number with law enforcement if
| they feel compelled to or something to that effect.
| nullorempty wrote:
| What criteria do you use when calling regime a terrorist
| regime?
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| Targeting civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure
| such as schools, hospitals, places of worship, water
| supplies, food supply lines, etc for the purposes of
| instilling fear in a civilian population to push a
| particular stance.
| aethalus wrote:
| To clarify, is it still a terrorist regime when it's not
| actually targeting civilians, but only by coincidence
| civilians and civilian infrastructure are close to the
| regime's military targets?
| airstrike wrote:
| Traditionally, no. Terrorism is the deliberate targeting
| of civilians
| toss1 wrote:
| When the targets, as a matter of publicly stated policy,
| engage in war crimes of using human shields to both
| attack civilians and defend themselves, store war
| munitions and setup command centers in hospitals,
| schools, etc., and when the country defends itself
| against those war crimes adhering to legal
| proportionality rules, then no.
|
| If it is actual indiscriminate bombing or targeting of
| civilian targets not used in war crimes, human shields,
| storing military equipment & munitions, command& control,
| etc., then yes.
| skinkestek wrote:
| No.
|
| This is rather clearly described in the laws of war.
|
| If militants hides behind civilians or use civilians as
| shields for military infrastructure, the lives of the
| civilians is their responsibility.
|
| This might seem counterintuitive at first but is
| perfectly obvious once you stop and think:
|
| If it was legal to use civilians as human shields and it
| would shield your military infrastructure everyone would
| do it.
|
| Because the laws of the war is so clear about it nobody
| does it except Hamas and they only do it because they
| know western media and commentators will blame Israel
| despite international laws being very _very_ clear in
| this matter.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Because the laws of the war is so clear about it
| nobody does it except Hamas_
|
| Everyone does it. We just call it espionage. That said,
| when a Western espionage mission goes awry and it results
| in collateral damage, the government doing the fuckery is
| properly blamed.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Not sure if we are talking about the same thing?
|
| I'm talking about Hamas literally
|
| a) putting missile ramps and ammo depots in busy areas
|
| b) preventing civilians from leaving after Israel has
| dropped leaflets, called phones in the area and dropped
| noise bombs
|
| I don't see how the west does anything similar.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Sure, Hamas dials the tactic to eleven. Point is hiding
| merchant raiders [1] and clandestine activities ( _e.g._
| the CIA 's fake vaccine campaign to verify Bin Laden [2])
| operate on the same principle. And when those go wrong,
| we properly blame the people using civilians for cover.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_raider
|
| [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-cia-
| fake-vacc...
| rangerelf wrote:
| > Note: all that is in a flux now. Personally I trust
| Telegram less now as it seems the same exceptions the French
| has made for themselves can also be used by russia or any
| other terrorist regime.
|
| What made you believe that Russia hasn't had a firehose into
| Telegram's backend for the longest time?
| eitland wrote:
| For one the fact that Ukraine used it for a long time and
| Russia even back before Ukraine told people to shun
| Telegram for work didn't seem to have very good
| intelligence.
|
| Also because I see over time how hopelessly incompetent
| Russian authorities are.
|
| Also (but this is more shaky, I never verified) because
| supposedly a good number of Telegram employees are
| Ukrainian.
| blendergeek wrote:
| > Telegram's encryption and anonymity provide a readymade
| technological platform for illicit activity, helping people
| to overcome information barriers and gaps in the circulation
| of information
|
| That sentence is definitely in the "services like Telegram
| should not exist" camp. I wouldn't call the entire article a
| "hit piece" but the author is definitely trying to sway minds
| in favor of more government crackdowns on apps like Telegram.
| hughdbrown wrote:
| I am not conversant in this field, but this portion of the
| author's profile made me think that she favors the money
| launderers on some libertarian grounds:
|
| > Her dissertation explores how the illicit market
| intersects and coexists with Cambodia's political and
| economic systems in the cybercrime sector, breaking the
| sovereign state's monopoly on violence and intersecting
| with transnational business networks to form a global
| illicit network.
|
| "Breaking the sovereign state's monopoly on violence" would
| seem a good thing only if you think that distributing
| violence more widely should be a social goal.
| skinkestek wrote:
| > "Breaking the sovereign state's monopoly on violence"
| would seem a good thing only if you think that
| distributing violence more widely should be a social
| goal.
|
| I think that a reasonable and useful distinction can be
| made between "Breaking the sovereign
| state's monopoly on violence"
|
| and distributing violence more widely
| should be a social goal.
|
| The first would be every ideological 2nd amendment
| supporter (as opposed to criminal, practical, contrarian
| or stick-it-to-the-libs 2nd amendment supporters).
|
| The second would be criminals.
| hughdbrown wrote:
| Here is a fuller expansion of the thinking behind my
| sentence you quote.
|
| The usual construction is:
|
| - in order to have a peaceful and ordered society,
| citizens renounce the use of violence and interact only
| by peaceful means
|
| - citizens of a city/region/country delegate the use of
| violence to the government (the "sovereign state")
|
| - the government's use of violence is carefully
| circumscribed by laws and use of governmental laws
| outside these circumstances is forbidden
|
| Which ends up defining government as the agent with the
| exclusive authority to use violence in a geographic
| region. And by extension has a monopoly on the use of
| violence, for the safety and freedom of all concerned.
|
| "Breaking the sovereign state's monopoly on violence", in
| this interpretation, would be to say that some or all
| people have recourse to violence, and in the worst case
| are not restrained by law or government. It's in this
| sense that I think that "breaking the sovereign state's
| monopoly on violence" amounts to distributing access to
| violence more widely.
|
| The consistent application of these ideas would require
| that citizens not have the right to resist government
| application of force. In my view, the second amendment is
| not a carve-out of (i.e. an exception to) this doctrine
| if it is understood to be applicable to resisting force
| applied by other citizens, not by government.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Edit: just saw this now, and I think I understand what
| you mean: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41672534
|
| Sorry, English is not my first language :-)
|
| -----------
|
| To try to explain were I come from in this discussion:
|
| I live in one of the Nordic countries in the suburbs.
|
| From what I know two of my immediate neighbors have
| firearms. I suspect there are a lot more nearby because
| gun ownership is very common and most people don't talk
| about it - I only know they have guns because they
| sometimes go hunting.)
|
| Growing up I knew about three houses with complete,
| working assault rifles and emergency depots of ammo.
| (This was completely normal until a spectacular robbery
| were the robbers used stolen assault rifles early in the
| 2000s.)
|
| Switzerland and Austria I understand is the same.
|
| All three known as very peaceful countries.
|
| From what I read most of the absolute worst crimes
| against humanity has happened by the government against
| the citizens, not by citizens against citizens.
|
| I am aware of the risks of pervasive weapons ownership
| but I think of it as an insurance policy against much
| much worse problems.
|
| So I feel quite confident that there is a huge difference
| between having access to violence and using violence.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _first would be every ideological 2nd amendment
| supporter_
|
| Owning a gun doesn't break the government's monopoly on
| violence because owning a gun isn't violent. Firing a gun
| at a shooting range isn't violent. (Most people don't
| consider hunting violence.)
|
| Reasonable 2nd Amendment supporters grant the state its
| monopoly on violence. They just want the means by way to
| revoke it. (Or, more realistically, make its abuse more
| difficult.)
| ronsor wrote:
| I would argue that the government's monopoly on violence
| is more about its power to engage in violence than
| literal acts of violence.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Ahh. Good point.
|
| Around here people are often very well armed but only
| military and politice are allowed to use firearms.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the government 's monopoly on violence is more about
| its power to engage in violence than literal acts of
| violence_
|
| Power being capability and willingness. Guns give a
| private citizen capability, same as anyone who can make a
| fist. They do not extend to signalling a willingness to
| shoot someone. (Threats, on the other hand, are illegal.
| Partly because they're no fun for anyone involved. Partly
| because that crosses from potential to actual.)
| heisenbit wrote:
| My understanding is that groups in Telegram are not
| encrypted and the document mostly refers to groups. When it
| comes to e2e encryption of one-to-one chats Telegram is not
| unique in that space.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Telegram encryption is opt in, even for one on one chats.
| That's unlike What's App, Facebook Messenger (as of
| 2024-03), Signal
| eitland wrote:
| Telegram encryption is not opt in. End-to-end encryption
| however is.
|
| Also this always get mentioned and everyone confuses
| encryption and end-to-end encryption.
|
| What seems to never get mentioned here unless I do is
| that there is more to security than end-to-end encryption
| or not:
|
| WhatsApp would (will? I don't use it since years ago)
| happily upload your data unencrypted (actually
| unencrypted not not-end-to-end-encryted!) to the biggest
| data harvester of all -Google if you or anyone you chat
| with enabled cloud backups.
|
| Signal had months I think where they had a weird bug were
| tje client would send pictures to people without the user
| triggering it.
|
| Facebook Messenger besides leaking all your communication
| patterns to the second largest data harvester also have
| this nifty feature were if someone reports your message
| an unencrypted message goes to Facebook.
|
| Facebook was also the ones that suggested people uploaded
| nudes so the could "know what they should remove", wasn't
| it?
|
| Signal also had a nasty exploit that would let anyone who
| sent a specially crafted message take control over the
| signal users computer if they opened the message in the
| desktop client.
|
| Telegram is also the only one that I am aware of that has
| reproducible builds for both Android and IOS. For every
| other client you have to trust them. With Telegram you
| can (could at least last I checked) check out the source,
| build it and compare it to the version on the App Store.
|
| What I mean is not that one should trust Telegram (there
| are things I use Signal for), only that when it comes to
| security engineering there is a lot more to consider than
| end-to-end encryption and HN really struggles to see
| this.
| sulandor wrote:
| seems like meta and google jump thru a lot of hoops to
| maintain the sharade of e2e-privacy whereas with telegram
| you know upfront that everything goes to someone else's
| computer and call it a day
| eitland wrote:
| I agree.
|
| Signal I think is very good with the two major
| exceptions:
|
| - AFAIK they don't publish reproducible builds
|
| - They've (IIRC and AFAIK) _at times_ had lower quality
| when it came to the non cryptographic parts.
|
| So if someones lives depend on e2e-encryption Signal is
| the only recommended messenger IMO.
|
| For following public news channels from Ukraine and the
| Middle East there is no alternative to Telegram.
|
| And if I have to organize something and not everyone is
| ready to install Signal (i.e. all the time around here) I
| try to use Telegram. That way I'm at least not
| spoonfeeding Google and Meta at the same time.
|
| If FSB sits on my weekend plans that is annoying but no
| big deal.
|
| (I was however rather annoyed when I realized local
| police used Telegram a while ago. I think that was very
| irresponsible.)
| chrisfosterelli wrote:
| It's not even considered a good implementation. It's opt-
| in instead of by default and uses non-standard
| cryptographic techniques.
|
| People who are critical of encrypted apps like to use
| Telegram as the chief boogyman but the real reason that
| Telegram is preferred by criminals isn't the encryption,
| it's that Telegram has a history of not moderating at
| all, allowing huge private groups, and refusing any
| cooperation with law enforcement or CSAM reporting
| groups.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| The author is a Taiwanese university student studying
| anthropology. Not everything is a submarine (planted PR).
| pbreit wrote:
| Is the issue the stealing or the laundering?
| alephnerd wrote:
| Along with Chinese organized crime, these marketplaces and
| brokers are protected and linked to Cambodia's ruling family [0]
| who themselves are ethnic Teochow/Nanyang.
|
| [0] - https://www.wired.com/story/pig-butchering-scam-crypto-
| huion...
| Jerrrrrrry wrote:
| drugs, crime, fin-laundering, and china capital outflow (all of
| the above)
|
| these are the epitome of all the use-cases of all the cryptos
| andriesm wrote:
| The imaginary crime of money laundering. If the underlying
| activity is a crime, we already have laws to deal with that. Why
| is any attempt at financial privacy deemed money laundering? Why
| does making any tool that help law abiding citizens have
| financial privacy, also guilty of money laundering?
|
| Of course, now that most people have bought into money
| laundering, the goal posts are now getting moved that any attempt
| at privacy can be considered illegal.
|
| You use or provide a messaging service that has unbreakable
| privacy - we'll make this a crime too!
|
| Why should it be illegal to use a crypto tumbler/mixer service?
|
| Oh because some people use it for crimes.
|
| Then arrest the CEOs of gun companies, because guns can be used
| to commit crimes!
| beaglessss wrote:
| While AML regulations likely have an impact, imo their main
| secret motive is financial surveillance.
| earnesti wrote:
| This kind of legislation is crafter by big masses of lawyers,
| lobbyists, politicians, whatever. Additionally they change
| all the time. There are many different motivations at play.
| Maybe it is surveillance, maybe something else, in the end
| who cares, because it is impossible to read minds.
| goatsi wrote:
| The "money laundering" at focus in the article is receiving
| money directly from people who are being scammed, and moving it
| quickly enough that the police cannot freeze or recover it when
| the scam is discovered. That's different from usual money
| laundering.
| mandibles wrote:
| If cash were invented today, it would be illegal.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If cash were invented today, it would be illegal_
|
| Based on what? Is 2008 not "today," because last I checked
| cryptocurrencies aren't illegal.
| badsandwitch wrote:
| Bitcoin is the furthest thing from cash, every single
| transaction is transparent on input and output.
|
| On the other hand...
|
| Tornado Cash was made illegal. Pressure is put on exchanges
| not to service Monero.
|
| Odd that it only happens to actual cash-like crypto?
| jjulius wrote:
| >Why is any attempt at financial privacy deemed money
| laundering? Why does making any tool that help law abiding
| citizens have financial privacy, also guilty of money
| laundering?
|
| These are untrue absolutes.
| beaglessss wrote:
| There is still an element of truth. If you don't provide KYC
| for a bank account there is now a crime if it is knowingly
| allowed. You could go offshore but now you need to report the
| account. You could form an anonymous LLC but law recently
| changed an now must report UBO to fincen.
|
| You could store cash/gold in an anonymous safe deposit, but
| FBI raid and steal this. You cant fly with large cash because
| again feds steal it. You can't carry it out the country in
| large without reporting it.
|
| Crypto, same story, KYC at the exits and P2P offramp actors
| getting treated as 'unlicensed money transmitter' etc which
| again triggers KYC.
|
| Quickly you realize it's about shutting off all the exits of
| privacy, not money laundering which only has increased cost
| consolidating power to more dangerous organizations.
| earnesti wrote:
| Not providing KYC is definitely not a crime. It happens all
| the time. What usually happens is that the bank just
| terminates the account, after a while.
| beaglessss wrote:
| I suspect a lot of people would be eager to know the
| names of these banks that let customers operate without
| KYC for awhile.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a lot of people would be eager to know the names of
| these banks that let customers operate without KYC for
| awhile_
|
| Non sequitur. Banks generally have to have KYC to do
| business, though there are famous exceptions in history.
| There is _no_ jurisdiction I know of in which as a
| customer not providing KYC is itself a crime.
| beaglessss wrote:
| The customer isnt charged, it is the bank/entity or
| persons there. Not legal advice but failure if AML and
| not collecting identifying information is charged under
| 31 USC 5322 under indictment I'm reading.
|
| The law here notes even some CFRs are criminally binding,
| the CFRs explicitly require certain identification.
| johngladtj wrote:
| You're so close, but so far.
|
| What happens if the banks don't close it?
| earnesti wrote:
| Later they might get a fine, which is just the cost of
| doing business for them.
| beaglessss wrote:
| Unless someone dislikes them, in which case they will
| unwittingly accept a sanctioned entity and then the
| indictment will scream bloody murder that this was
| basically all about not doing KYC (even though we all
| know sanctioned entities operate on white market using
| dark identity, so regular banks guilty too).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _in which case they will unwittingly accept a
| sanctioned entity and then the indictment will scream
| bloody murder that this was basically all about not doing
| KYC_
|
| Example? Every one I can think of involved the bank not
| doing KYC, criminals taking advantage of it, and evidence
| at least some people at the bank knew what was happening.
| (Usually because authorities told the bank they were
| doing business with criminals and the bank responded by
| shuffling things around so they could continue doing that
| business.)
| beaglessss wrote:
| Banks are always doing business with criminals and
| sanctioned entities and they know that, although not
| always when and where.
|
| The difference is if the bank does KYC and the criminal
| uses a dark identity, the bank will likely get away with
| it. If the bank just gives each person a random number as
| their only identifier like the old swiss accounts, then
| they'll be warned sanctioned entities are using it and
| ultimately prosecuted when they fail to KYC (i.e. similar
| but but identical to CZ).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _difference is if the bank does KYC and the criminal
| uses a dark identity, the bank will likely get away with
| it_
|
| What is a dark entity? Have you worked in finance?
| Because if you collect KYC and accepted forged or faulty
| documents, the moment you figure out what's going on is
| the moment you call your personal lawyer.
| beaglessss wrote:
| One example is criminal pays a heroin addict for their
| real ID and then basically uses them as pass through
| nominee on the account.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _criminal pays a heroin addict for their real ID and
| then basically uses them as pass through nominee on the
| account_
|
| Sure. If you're at a financial institution and accept
| that documentation, you're personally in for a world of
| hurt. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, either due to
| someone being negligent, overworked or happy to look the
| other way. But if it's caught, it's not great for the
| individual. (The bank will survive after paying a fine
| unless it's systemic.)
| beaglessss wrote:
| I imagine they usually don't know. Some fraction of
| identities are real IDs taken advantage of by sanctioned
| entities. If you bank at all you knowingly accept some
| level of sanctioned entities, but often don't know what
| identity they operate.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Some fraction of identities are real IDs taken
| advantage of by sanctioned entities_
|
| Sure. But if the addict you mentioned's account goes from
| overdrafting every few weeks to holding millions of
| dollars, that should set off internal alarms.
| ywvcbk wrote:
| Is most of that an issue if you declare your income and pay
| any relevant taxes? Outside of some unnecessary annoyances
| it generally wouldn't be too complicated to move your money
| around.
|
| Otherwise, what are you expecting? Direct taxation isn't
| really compatible with 'financial privacy' and never was.
| beaglessss wrote:
| My response is civil rights should drive the tax man's
| behavior and not the other way around. I will accept a
| loss in efficiency of taxation.
| vladimirralev wrote:
| It depends. Some banks will ask for root origin of funds.
| Say you earned some money 20 years ago, invested them
| with various brokers into stocks all over the world, real
| estate etc. And then cashed a large sum into your
| account. If any one of those transactions is flagged they
| will require you to go back 20 years and collect those
| invoices that you earned and then you have to collect
| every transaction from the brokers, this may involve
| foreign jurisdictions where record keeping and querying
| is not available from 20 years ago.
|
| So you will fail the disclosure and the bank will flag
| you in the shared blacklist DBs, they close your accounts
| and you are out of the system. This is happening enmasse
| to people who invested in and cashed out of real estate
| abroad(asia/africa/sa) some time ago. I imagine it's the
| same with foreign stock markets. And you never know what
| will be required 20 years in the future, thus most
| financial advisors discourage "moving money around". They
| even have a whitelist of brokers, stocks and
| jurisdictions, anything outside that is uninvestable for
| normal people just because of KYC/AML paperwork
| requirements.
| soco wrote:
| The underlying is one thing and the overlying another thing.
| It's one thing to not declare your money and thus be tried for
| tax evasion only, and another thing putting said money in
| financial tricks (as we both know that's the only goal of
| mixers) in order to commit tax evasion. If you want, think like
| the difference between murder and manslaughter - which also
| have many degrees and associated crimes like assault, arson,
| rape... we always try for those as well.
| smeej wrote:
| > (as we both know that's the only goal of mixers)
|
| Do "we" know that's the _only_ goal?
|
| I've reported every digital currency-related gain or loss
| I've ever had on my taxes, but that doesn't mean I wanted the
| guy I bought my llama wool socks from to be able to trace my
| whole holdings. I know how easy it is to do. I learned how to
| do it _in an afternoon._
|
| Believe it or not, some of us just really don't think the
| world needs an indelible record of what kind of socks we
| wear, not because we actually think anybody will _care,_ but
| because we reject the principle that buying socks should
| require a data record for third parties.
|
| We might be weirder than you, but that doesn't make us
| dishonest cheats.
| soco wrote:
| Fair enough, I take that generalization back.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Why is any attempt at financial privacy deemed money
| laundering?
|
| Is it? I thought laundering money is only illegal if it's
| covering up illegal activity. Otherwise how is that different
| from e.g. the shell corporations that mask the sources of their
| funds.
| beaglessss wrote:
| Almost all large financial transactions or storage useful and
| active in commerce require KYC or reporting so the magic is
| the very act of privacy makes it illegal.
| dataflow wrote:
| It sounds like you're mixing up a bunch of things. To be
| clear: do you have a single example of a person who was
| convicted of the crime of money laundering despite it being
| proven in court that the underlying activity wasn't
| illegal?
| beaglessss wrote:
| In criminal law people aren't expected to prove what they
| did wasn't illegal, it is the other way around. What did
| happen in the case of CZs conviction is the state alleged
| that lack of KYC allows some actors with illegal funds to
| pass through, making weak KYC checks an element of money
| laundering.
| dataflow wrote:
| > In criminal law people aren't expected to prove what
| they did wasn't illegal, it is the other way around.
|
| I very much understand that, but you missed my point with
| that constraint: the point was that if your objection is
| that _legal_ underlying activity can constitute money
| laundering, then to prove your objection you need to show
| an example of provably legal underlying activity.
|
| On the other hand, if your complaint is that innocent-
| before-proven-guilty isn't being upheld by courts, that's
| a fine complaint, but an entirely separate one from money
| laundering.
|
| > What did happen in the case of CZs conviction is the
| state alleged that lack of KYC allows some actors with
| illegal funds to pass through, making weak KYC checks an
| element of money laundering.
|
| In other words he _did_ conceal illegal activity. Hence
| my point.
| beaglessss wrote:
| Every single bank and person conceals illegal activity by
| your final sentence. You probably have sold something for
| cash bought by a drug dealer and unknowingly laundered
| drug money.
|
| The point here is that an unwitting actor is somehow
| guilty if they did not do KYC. By your standard basically
| every gas station near the border is a money launderer,
| since they know damn well much of the cash they take and
| transmit is drug and cartel money.
|
| And that's the genius of this line of reasoning. There is
| nary a dollar in circulation that hasnt been used in
| crime.
| dataflow wrote:
| Again, you're mixing things up and moving goalposts. I
| wasn't trying to make a case for what money laundering
| is, only what (as I understand it) it _definitely isn
| 't_. The example you cite clearly covered up underlying
| criminal activity, whereas the claim was that you can be
| guilty of money laundering _without any illegal
| underlying crime_. Hence it fails to support the premise.
| That is all.
| beaglessss wrote:
| >Again, you're mixing things up and moving goalposts
|
| No you're mixing things. I said acts of privacy (with
| listed examples of reporting large transactions) are made
| illegal, then you went to only money laundering.
|
| >he example you cite
|
| You asked for an example of proving something not illegal
| in court. You know damn well that's not the standard used
| in criminal law, it was a trick question which I tried to
| answer how I thought you meant to ask until I realized
| you were being duplicitous.
|
| >without any illegal underlying crime.
|
| This is a false understanding of money laundering. It
| isn't sufficient that there be illegal money involved,
| there should be mens rea of such. Your premise is a lie
| designed to mislead the audience. Good day.
| dataflow wrote:
| > No you're mixing things. I said acts of privacy (with
| listed examples of reporting large transactions) are made
| illegal, then you went to only money laundering.
|
| How did _I_ move to money laundering? Are we reading the
| same thread? The comment I initially replied to
| _specifically_ said, "Why is _any attempt at financial
| privacy_ deemed _money laundering_ "?
|
| > you were being duplicitous. Your premise is a lie
| designed to mislead the audience.
|
| It's quite the opposite, but your personal swipes are
| pretty uncalled for, so I won't continue.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _all large financial transactions or storage useful and
| active in commerce require KYC_
|
| Not at all. I have authorised large wires without providing
| KYC or collecting KYC from the other party. My bank knows
| who I am. And I colloquially know the person I'm sending
| money to. But I haven't _e.g._ run them through OFAC.
| beaglessss wrote:
| Your counterparty was almost certainly KYCd if the
| receiving bank deals in USD or receive from a bank in us
| jurisdiction.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I've wired non-USD from my U.S. bank and wired U.S.
| dollars overseas. I presume their bank is doing KYC. But
| I don't know.
|
| You claimed "all large financial transactions or storage
| useful and active in commerce require KYC." That's simply
| untrue. It's advisable to ensure someone is doing their
| KYC. But not necessary.
| beaglessss wrote:
| Yes if you cutoff the first word it becomes untrue, how
| ridiculously disinguine.
|
| Here's an exercise, look at the FATF black list and then
| start asking your bank about the process for wiring large
| sums there. A lot of this compliance is driven through
| FATF actions that drive any country that wants access to
| anyone touching dollars or us banks to comply.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _look at the FATF black list and then start asking your
| bank about the process for wiring large sums there_
|
| So you've moved the goalpost from all large transactions
| to transactions with explicitly sanctioned (EDIT: listed)
| entities.
| beaglessss wrote:
| No I haven't. For instance the nation of Myanmar is in
| the list. OFAC as far as I know would permit transmission
| to most people there
|
| The black list is nominally about weak AML and other
| factors. It's an example I used because it's a list of
| places on the shit list in part because they may have
| weak controls on KYC.
|
| FATF is a big driver if imposing KYC everywhere that
| wants to interact with a US bank or USD. I'm trying to
| show you if you actually try to wire somewhere with bad
| KYC I think you're going to have issues.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if you actually try to wire somewhere with bad KYC I
| think you 're going to have issues_
|
| Sure. There are three black list countries: North Korea,
| Myanmar and Iran. "Almost all large transactions" do not
| happen with people in these countries.
| beaglessss wrote:
| Are you at least open to the idea that the major reason
| why many other nations like Bahamas, Cayman Islands,
| Panama, St Kitts came off the black list and into AML and
| KYC compliance is so they would have low friction wire
| transfers and banking in USD?
|
| I think you're missing connecting the dots here.
| Countries with large USD transaction dependence comply
| with KYC precisely because otherwise they'd not be able
| to easily accept your wire transfer. They were pressured
| into it, this KYC requirement that is largely invisible
| to you. And the threat is well if they don't they end up
| like Myanmar which I promise your bank will be getting to
| know what the purpose and identity of any transaction you
| have with them is.
|
| KYC dominates because of a worldwide regulatory effort,
| do this or you'll be cut off and it will be a nightmare
| to trade USD. Almost all large transactions go through
| KYC or reporting because it's been made difficult and
| usually illegal not to. Were this not the case you WOULD
| likely see lots of large transactions to Myanmar as
| various rich people use it as a haven for stashing funds
| anonymously ( although I think Panama etc would quickly
| steal the competitive edge).
| ETH_start wrote:
| In this case, the people are actually laundering money.
|
| So-called anti-money laundering laws criminalize far more than
| money laundering, like financial privacy.
|
| In any case, I would argue that the focus should be entirely on
| the crime that generates the illicit revenue, and not the
| after-the-fact laundering of the proceeds. When the focus is on
| the latter, laws are inevitably passed that mandate people to
| submit to warrantless surveillance of their financial
| transactions. The populace at large should not be made to
| sacrifice freedom and privacy in a largely futile attempt to
| track illicit criminal gains after the fact.
|
| No useful money -- i.e. no money that is unencumbered enough to
| be practical to use, and that provisions people with a modicum
| of protection against arbitrary state seizure -- will give the
| state the ability to significantly prevent criminals from
| profiting from the proceeds of their crimes, merely by tracking
| and policing its flows.
| ajross wrote:
| > Then arrest the CEOs of gun companies, because guns can be
| used to commit crimes!
|
| So, obviously people know this, but it's important to spell
| out:
|
| There is an _explicit protection_ for keeping and bearing arms
| in the constitution. No such language exists for "financial
| privacy", in fact the fourth amendment explicitly says the
| government _can_ search and investigate citizens ' property,
| just that they have to get a warrant based on probable cause.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| It's probably only a matter of time until the SC extends
| "papers and effects" to mean "your stuff on other people's
| hard drives" in some capacity. That will probably trigger a
| bunch of re-litigation around the financial side of things
| though I have no idea what the consequences would be.
| ajross wrote:
| It... already does. You can get a warrant for whatever
| evidence you need already, no need for any new legislation.
| The constitutional requirement is for judicial supervision,
| and that's been pretty solid (not perfect, but good) for
| almost three centuries now.
|
| I'm just saying that there is no "right to financial
| privacy" anywhere. You have a _general_ right to privacy as
| granted by the fourth amendment. And courts take that
| seriously. But it 's not absolute and the government is
| allowed to unmask things for law enforcement.
| valicord wrote:
| You're exaggerating of course, but as a matter of principle, if
| X is a crime, then obscuring the evidence of having done X must
| surely also be a separate crime in its own right? Otherwise
| someone would do X, then destroy the evidence and be in the
| clear, since original X is now impossible to prove.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| no - this assumes the absolute existence of an unspecified
| crime, so the question has incomplete context and poisonous
| assumptions. There are rights of privacy for individuals and
| groups in mature systems of law. The extremes of "everything
| I do is my own information" and the opposite "we enforcers
| have a right to all information at any time" are both
| explicitly not allowed, for real reasons.
| samatman wrote:
| No, it very much should not be. We have an existing sort of
| crime for _knowing participation_ in that kind of thing, it
| 's called being an accessory.
|
| If someone buys, let's say a bike, off an online marketplace,
| and it turns out to be stolen, they're out the price of the
| bike. It never belonged to them and gets returned to the
| owner. But it must be proven that they knew it was stolen for
| that to qualify as accessory to theft.
|
| If you make any action which _has the effect_ of obscuring
| evidence of crime, regardless of mens rea, into a crime, you
| will end up prosecuting innocent people. That 's why this
| legal doctrine works the way it does.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If you make any action which has the effect of obscuring
| evidence of crime, regardless of mens rea, into a crime,
| you will end up prosecuting innocent people_
|
| Sure. This isn't how aML law works. Money laundering is
| specifically disguising the proceeds of illicit activity.
| If there is no illicit activity, it's not money laundering
| and it isn't illegal. Using a mixer or running your life
| exclusively on cash is not illegal.
| ljf wrote:
| Not in the UK - there is a crime of handling stolen goods -
| where you can be asked to prove the steps you took to
| ensure they aren't stolen, or risk forfiting the good and
| the money you made selling them. Hence why KYC is so
| important for pawn shops etc. here.
|
| Another UK example - a boat maker made incredibly high
| powered speedboats - that happened to be very popular with
| drugs runners. How how was he supposed to know what would
| be done with them? But still they end up on the most wanted
| list: https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/21291272.high-speed-
| boats-sold-d...
| rangestransform wrote:
| it's incredibly authoritarian to have to affirmatively
| prove that one is not committing a crime to the
| government
|
| burden of proof should be squarely on the prosecution,
| period, end of story, don't force people to create
| evidence against themselves
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's incredibly authoritarian to have to
| affirmatively prove that one is not committing a crime to
| the government_
|
| Nit: it's oppressive and quasi totalitarian, not
| authoritarian.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| Does any money laundering offence not have a mens rea,
| though? You typically have to have at least suspected that
| you were dealing with the proceeds of crime.
| timdev2 wrote:
| Structuring (splitting up cash deposits to a bank so that
| they don't trigger the bank to file a CTR) comes to mind.
| It does have a mens rea component, but the money being
| entirely clean doesn't make the act not-structuring,
| IIUC.
| derefr wrote:
| A casino isn't a "knowing participant" to any _specific_
| crime -- no criminal comes up to them and makes a deal to
| launder money through the casino.
|
| But casinos (for example) have a _tacit agreement_ with the
| "criminal industry" in general, that criminals will be able
| to inherently launder money through the cash-in/cash-out
| mechanisms of the casino, in exchange for having to play
| some table games (and therefore lose at least a small
| percentage of their money, i.e. give a percentage of their
| ill-gotten gains to the casino) to make everything look
| legitimate.
|
| If a given business has a business model where it _would
| not possibly stay afloat over the long term, if not for
| some appreciable fraction of its customer base making use
| of the business for money laundering_ -- then the business
| is a "knowing participant" to the _general concept_ of
| money laundering, even if they have never shaken hands with
| any specific criminals. Their MBAs knowingly _design_ the
| business around _enabling_ money laundering.
|
| Come to think of it, this is a bit like the argument the US
| DOJ used to take down Napster -- which actually, finally
| somewhat convinces me of the logic they used.
|
| The Napster company's business model depended upon some
| appreciable fraction of its clientele being IP pirates. For
| everyone else, Napster was a vitamin; but for pirates,
| Napster was a painkiller. Napster would never have achieved
| spread without a core base of pirates to spread it. The
| Napster company's business model (presumably something like
| "make the software widely used, then sell ads that display
| in the client" or something) depended on -- was planned
| around -- piracy. Thus, Napster was in _tacit collusion_
| with pirates; just as most money launderers are in _tacit
| collusion_ with gangsters.
| joncrocks wrote:
| Isn't that the reason that (at least in the US) cashing
| out over a certain size requires ID? So that large
| amounts of cash can't be laundered easily in this way?
| derefr wrote:
| Yes, and the point where that became enforced, was pretty
| much the point where casinos in the US were sold off from
| the gangs that generally owned them up to that point, to
| "entertainment tycoons" who turned them into the "arcades
| for adults" / "cruise ships on land" they're known as
| today.
|
| The US just got uniquely "lucky" here, in that the people
| who bought up the casinos from the gangs, had a business
| plan that involved making Las Vegas et al "family
| friendly", which required moving as far away from the
| casinos' previous "gang-affiliated" image as possible. As
| such, they had no plans related to continuing to tacitly
| launder money for the gangs; instead looking specifically
| for that kind of signature and stopping it when they
| notice it. (The shared Vegas-casino blacklist exists 1%
| to stop card counters, and 99% to stop organized
| criminals.)
|
| Elsewhere in the world, this particular story didn't play
| out the same way, though. So casinos elsewhere are still
| mostly money-laundering fronts. Not always operated _by_
| gangs, but often operated under the implicit business-
| model assumption _of_ gangs.
|
| What you'll see in your average casino-allowing country
| -- Australia, say -- are casino businesses run by regular
| people, who get very little traffic from regular gamblers
| (nobody travels to Australia to gamble), who do zero
| investment into making the casino _attractive_ to regular
| people... and who instead concentrate all their effort on
| making sure that gangs -- some even state-affiliated,
| apparently! -- can continue to launder money through the
| casinos with ease.
|
| Though, for an example of very _explicit_ gang-casino
| involvement, there 's the Golden Triangle, containing
| casinos owned directly by a particular gang -- where it
| isn't the gang members themselves (or their proxies)
| cashing in and out to wash money; but instead, customers
| of the gang's drug business, cashing in at the casino,
| and then proceeding to lose all their money at the table,
| as their way of making payment for a drug shipment from
| the gang.
| duped wrote:
| I was under the impression that you don't need an
| underlying act to charge or convict someone with
| obstruction/other crimes of concealment because if they
| were so good at concealing the crime you wouldn't be able
| to prove the underlying act, even if you could prove that
| they concealed it.
|
| For example if a court subpoenaed a document while
| investigating a crime but then the suspect destroyed the
| document, you don't need to prove that the underlying crime
| happened to prove that the suspect attempted to conceal it.
| samatman wrote:
| If a court subpoenas evidence, and someone destroys that
| evidence, that's destruction of evidence, which is a
| specific crime. My point is more general than that. The
| reason someone could be prosecuted for that, even though
| it leads to a lack of conviction for the originally-
| investigated crime, is that destruction of evidence is
| itself criminal behavior.
|
| One could construct situations where a third party with
| no knowledge of the subpoena destroys a document for
| ordinary reasons, after the subpoena is issued. That
| person is going to be very closely scrutinized, possibly
| charged, but it's entirely possible to be found innocent
| of a crime there. Say a corporation employs a document
| warehouse and the contract says that documents are to be
| destroyed after 60 days. A court orders on day 58 that
| those documents be remanded, but the corporation doesn't
| tell the warehouse, and the court is not aware that the
| documents are in that warehouse, so they don't send the
| subpoena to the warehouse.
|
| The operator of the warehouse is not guilty of
| destruction of evidence in this case. The party at the
| corporation whose duty it was to produce the documents is
| guilty. Assuming this is a high-profile case, there will
| absolutely be additional subpoenas to demonstrate that
| the operator was not informed of the need to retain the
| documents, but mens rea must be demonstrated because
| shredding documents is not _per se_ illegal behavior.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Hey actually there is good news! I follow this topic and the
| broken dragnet of AML/KYC a lot
|
| The US federal law of Money laundering relies on there being an
| _illicit origin_ , which means it is impossible to be charged
| with _just_ money laundering and it can only be a tacked on
| charge (but it may be the only charge that sticks). Merely
| obfuscating the origin is not a crime, it's just stigmatized.
|
| Ironically, if you are successful with money laundering, the
| origin looks licit.
|
| The government acts like that never happens, DOJ always issues
| these pompous press releases about how nobody can hide in our
| financial system, but they dont know anything.
| ywvcbk wrote:
| > any attempt at financial privacy deemed money laundering
|
| If by privacy you mean concealing it from the government then
| yeah, that's generally illegal in pretty much any place that
| has income/capital gains/wealth taxes.
| navigate8310 wrote:
| > generally illegal in pretty much any place that has
| income/capital gains/wealth taxes
|
| Authoritarian governments typically enforce fiat currency to
| monitor citizens, especially those with financial ties to
| anti-establishment entities. They couldn't care less if
| you're trading tomatoes.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Authoritarian governments typically enforce fiat
| currency to monitor citizens_
|
| Example? Despotic governemnts in the real world are
| kleptocracies. They use all manners of currencies because
| their elites spend what they can steal. To the extent we
| have highly-surveillable money systems, it's ones people
| freely engage with, _e.g._ the U.S. dollar and crypto.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| That isn't generally true, what real world autocratic
| regime do you have experience with? You can have less
| government theft than in more democratic countries,
| because favorable economic conditions are one way of
| buying compliance. Take the largest dictatorship in the
| world: China. The CCP does not take "what they can". The
| tax burden is much lower than basically in any liberal
| democracy in the West. A lot of taxes that you may think
| are normal simply do not exist, property tax for example
| is not a thing. They have heavy foreign exchange
| restrictions, to keep money in the country. Many people
| working in China are able to save a lot more of their
| income than they would if they were in Europe or North
| America. The catch is you can't freely use all manners of
| currency, you can't even easily exchange to USD as a
| Chinese. Foreign stock ownership is restricted.
| Cryptocurrency is banned. It's basically the complete
| opposite of what you described.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _take the largest dictatorship in the world: China_
|
| China has semi-effective capital controls, at least on
| the _hoi polloi_. (There is _massive_ leakage via Hong
| Kong and Macau, but that 's for the _hoi olligoi_.) China
| also has a thriving cash culture, which undermines your
| tracking motivation argument.
|
| Look at authoritarian countries broadly, however, and you
| find a mix of strict capital-control regimes to maybe
| something on paper but zero enforcement [1]. To the
| extent they _have_ capital controls, it 's generally to
| defend the value of the currency. Not for surveillance.
| Conversely, thriving democracies have enforced capital
| controls (again to defend their currency).
|
| Capital controls are not an authoritarian-only policy
| tool. And the principal motivation for capital controls,
| _i.e._ requiring the use of domestic currency, across
| history, has been economic.
|
| > _CCP does not take "what they can". The tax burden is
| much lower than basically in any liberal democracy in the
| West_
|
| Straw man--nobody claimed the CCP or anyone else takes
| "what they can." Your metapoint is correct: China is the
| 34th lowest (7.7%) and the U.S. 184th (12.2%) [2]. But
| that number doesn't include what the elites extract [3].
|
| [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/what-coun...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_state
| s_by_ta...
|
| [3] https://www.icij.org/investigations/offshore/leaked-
| records-...
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| This doesn't explain why surveillance is required on the
| buyer's side. Why can't you go to a retail store, buy an
| anonymous prepaid debit card for cash and then use it to make
| purchases over the internet without giving anyone your social
| security number? The cash you're using has already been
| taxed.
| adwhdj wrote:
| To protect the kids of course! How ever could the
| government prevent all of these awful crimes against
| children unless we surveil everything. Like I always say,
| if you have nothing to hide. . .
|
| Is what I imagine some spook told the lawmakers. Sarcasm
| aside, I believe it is control.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why can 't you go to a retail store, buy an anonymous
| prepaid debit card for cash and then use it to make
| purchases over the internet_
|
| Because when this is made available in practice like 99% of
| the volume is tied to crime. 99% of _users_ aren 't
| criminals. But criminals use it at scale in a way that
| dwarfs licit activity. (Without tracking how much each
| person is using it, you can't cut off the scale users.)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If the underlying activity is a crime, we already have laws
| to deal with that_
|
| This is like complaining about DUIs being illegal because we
| already have laws banning manslaughter.
|
| > _Why is any attempt at financial privacy deemed money
| laundering?_
|
| It's not. Layering _per se_ isn 't illegal. It's suspicious but
| legal, in the same category as carting a semi-automatic into a
| grocery store in an open-carry state.
|
| > _Why does making any tool that help law abiding citizens have
| financial privacy, also guilty of money laundering?_
|
| It doesn't. Practically every prosecution of money-laundering
| services included evidence of knowledge by the operator that
| their customers included people committing crimes.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > This is like complaining about DUIs being illegal because
| we already have laws banning manslaughter.
|
| The premise of DUIs is to punish a person acting recklessly.
| The premise of KYC is to punish a third party for not
| conducting mass surveillance on predominantly innocent people
| in case one of them commits a crime. It's hard to see how
| these are analogous.
|
| > Practically every prosecution of money-laundering services
| included evidence of knowledge by the operator that their
| customers included people committing crimes.
|
| This is quite a fig leaf for any entity operating at scale.
| The customers of any major bank will obviously include people
| committing crimes -- they have millions of customers. They
| also have thousands of employees, and then some percentage of
| them will be criminals as well. Expecting the intersection of
| these to be literally zero is an unreasonable standard.
|
| More to the point, the underlying problem is what it
| incentivizes them to do, i.e. manufacture some opaque and
| arbitrary indicators and then conduct mass surveillance and
| punish innocent people for running afoul of secret rules.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _premise of DUIs is to punish a person acting recklessly.
| The premise of KYC is to punish a third party for not
| conducting mass surveillance on predominantly innocent
| people in case one of them commits a crime. It 's hard to
| see how these are analogous_
|
| You don't see how a bank not doing KYC and thereby
| financing terrorists and Pyongyang could be seen as
| behaving recklessly?
|
| > _quite a fig leaf for any entity operating at scale_
|
| Sure. It's why a lot of anti-money laundering isn't
| prosecuted and why OP's complaint strikes me as silly.
|
| > _conduct mass surveillance_
|
| U.S. AML law is actually somewhat terrible for mass
| surveillance. Records are held at each private institution.
| This is why, if you've ever been party to wire fraud, it
| takes the Feds hours to days to gather records. It's pull,
| not push.
|
| The practical arms of mass surveillance are the
| credit/debit card rails. (And, increasingly, crypto.)
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Drivers under the influence isn't necessarily reckless, but
| is banned due to a strong association with reckless action.
|
| The crime of DUI is not contingent on the actual facts,
| risk, and danger presented in a given situation.
|
| The association with realized harm is probabilistic in
| nature.
| iphoneisbetter wrote:
| I agree. The problem isn't drunk driving. The problem is
| drunk crashing.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Both can be a _problem_ , depending on the problem
| statement, but the harm clearly occurs with the crashing.
|
| Drunk driving is an upstream pre-requisite to drunk
| crashing.
| dpig_ wrote:
| All skills require practice, but they simply won't let us
| get good.
| haswell wrote:
| > _Drivers under the influence isn 't necessarily
| reckless, but is banned due to a strong association with
| reckless action_
|
| I'm trying to understand this. It is well documented that
| consuming alcohol impairs thinking, reaction time, motor
| function, etc. How is the decision to drive a multi-
| thousand pound vehicle in the proximity of other humans
| while in that state not itself reckless?
|
| You seem to be arguing that the problem primarily exists
| when some percentage of impaired drivers start to drive
| recklessly. But given the baseline impairment, how is the
| act of driving not inherently reckless?
|
| Drunk driving crashes don't just happen because someone
| decided to go crazy and drive 130mph or something
| similar. They also happen because the impaired person
| fails at basic aspects of driving like staying in their
| lane, stopping in time, seeing pedestrians, etc.
|
| > _The crime of DUI is not contingent on the actual
| facts, risk, and danger presented in a given situation._
|
| DUI is a crime based on the fact that people driving
| under the influence are significantly more likely to harm
| others, and the baseline risk is high enough to make
| driving in such a state unacceptable. Even with laws in
| place banning it, alcohol is a leading cause of vehicle
| related deaths and there are quite a few of them every
| year.
|
| It seem problematic to argue that these laws aren't based
| on actual facts and real danger when both are well
| documented.
|
| > _The association with realized harm is probabilistic in
| nature_
|
| The same could be said about almost every kind of harm
| you can think of. It's unclear what someone is supposed
| to take from this statement.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| My point is that the law doesn't actually look at
| situational risk or recklessness. It is a rough heuristic
| to approximate it. Im not even necessarily arguing
| against it, but highlighting the common conflation
| between harm, actual risk, and heuristically approximated
| risk.
|
| A cop or the law makes no pretension of trying to
| evaluate if a driver actually put someone at risk in a
| given scenario. A judge doesn't care if you were alone on
| the road or how far you were going. A judge doesn't even
| care if the car is on or moving.
|
| >alcohol is a leading cause of vehicle related deaths and
| there are quite a few of them every year. It seem
| problematic to argue that these laws aren't based on
| actual facts and real danger when both are well
| documented.
|
| I would say there is little systemic logic to the rate
| and severity of penalties. In 33% of pedestrian
| fatalities, the pedestrian was drunk. In 16%, the driver
| was drunk.[1]
|
| Similarly, the common DUI threshold is 0.08 BAC.
|
| Being awake for 17 hours (working late) is similar to
| having a BAC of 0.05%. [2]
|
| Being awake for 24 hours (working a double shift) is
| similar to having a BAC of 0.10%
|
| Simply talking on a phone while driving has been shown to
| be similar to a BAC of 0.08%.
|
| Texting while driving is equivalent to a BAC of 0.19%!
| [3]
|
| The fine for texting while driving starts $20, but the
| total cost can be over $162 due to court costs.
|
| >The same could be said about almost every kind of harm
| you can think of. It's unclear what someone is supposed
| to take from this statement.
|
| Im just making the point that we we criminalize isnt as
| clear cut as one might think, and people often conflate
| actual harm, actual risk, and heuristically approximated
| risk.
|
| More generally, I think the intersection with probability
| and criminal justice is fascinating, particularly the
| criminalizing risk factors. e.g. if we took a similar
| approach, what percent confidence would we need that
| someone will commit murder to preemptively lock them up
| based on risk.
|
| https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/GHSA-
| Pedest...
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/work-hour-training-for-
| nurses/long...
| https://facilities.uw.edu/blog/posts/2016/07/26/texting-
| and-...
| singleshot_ wrote:
| How do you figure drivers driving under the influence
| aren't reckless? Are they not aware of the risk? Are they
| not consciously disregarding it? Or are you using some
| weird definition of recklessness?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think what I find interesting in the application of
| statistics, and how a population characteristic can be
| different from individual circumstance. Real world risk
| isnt categorical, it variable.
|
| On average, drunk driving obviously poses more risk than
| regular driving. However, drunk driving isnt _always_
| risky, and does not necessarily or uniformly put others
| at risk at the factual case by case level.
|
| I think this makes it an interesting intersection between
| probability, heuristics, and criminal justice
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| The point is that drunk driving is illegal even if you
| are driving perfectly fine.
|
| Hell, being drunk just sitting in a parked, no ignition
| driver seat is illegal in some places.
|
| Not sure how the second one is reckless in this context.
| stickfigure wrote:
| > Expecting the intersection of these to be literally zero
| is an unreasonable standard.
|
| Nobody expects the intersection to be zero - not the banks,
| not the regulators. The rule is that banks must take
| prudent measures, and the definition of that has evolved
| over time (as financial crime has evolved over time).
|
| Google "risk-based anti-money laundering approach" or if
| you'd like a more thorough introduction, listen to the Dark
| Money Files podcast.
|
| I have libertarian sympathies too, especially since most
| AML rules were originally established to fight the war on
| drugs (my sympathies lie with the dealers, sorry). But I'm
| pretty happy to make life hard for terrorists, bad
| governments, and kleptocrats - who, unlike the characters
| in Reefer Madness, are not just bogeymen.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| > It's suspicious but legal, in the same category as carting
| a semi-automatic into a grocery store in an open-carry state.
|
| Any suspicion toward a US citizen for open-carrying a semi-
| automatic weapon (which you realize is like half of the
| handguns in circulation, right?) is entirely due to one's own
| prejudice and misconceptions. It is objectively not
| suspicious. The individual is openly carrying it, not hiding
| it. Concealed carry should not be suspicious either, but open
| carry should be _less_ suspicious.
|
| This would be a good moment to examine your biases against a
| fundamentally protected human right as recognized by our
| constitution.
| gambiting wrote:
| >> It is objectively not suspicious.
|
| It literally couldn't be any more suspicious. Carrying a
| jar of bees into a public space isn't illegal either but
| I'd be _very_ suspicious of anyone doing it, and it doesn
| 't even need any special protection in the constitution.
|
| Just because something is legal doesn't mean you have to be
| completely and unquestionably accepting of it in public
| spaces.
| ectospheno wrote:
| I lived in a state for half my life where a concealed carry
| permit was one page of paper and $100. I knew a lot of
| people who exercised that right.
|
| I wouldn't describe any of them as legal scholars. Their
| knowledge extended to two amendments and not much more. I
| wouldn't describe many of them as confident or brave
| either.
|
| They could angry post with the best of them though. Loved
| arguments.
| legitster wrote:
| > Why is any attempt at financial privacy deemed money
| laundering?
|
| Ummm. Taxes?
|
| Money laundering is very clearly accounting fraud. If
| embezzlement is a crime, then money laundering is just
| embezzlement in reverse.
|
| I feel like you are down an absolutist rabbithole about
| privacy. There are certain practical limits to privacy. You
| cannot blight yourself from other people's vision. You cannot
| operate in a society (whether it be grocery shopping, owning
| property, driving a car) without existing in some form.
| "Privacy" only makes sense in the context and is not some
| maximalist ideal that you can apply to any situation.
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| > If the underlying activity is a crime, we already have laws
| to deal with that.
|
| Why should guns be illegal, we already have a crime against
| killing.
|
| Breathtakingly idiotic.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| That's actually a good argument against outlawing guns. What
| point are you trying to make?
| vkou wrote:
| > The imaginary crime of money laundering
|
| There's nothing imaginary about trying to hide money that you
| stole from someone, so that it can't be taken back from you.
| tempodox wrote:
| I never knew it could be so interesting to be an anthropologist!
|
| And I love how the article gives the Chinese words for all the
| terms involved. It feeds my fascination for everything that is
| Language.
|
| > The Chinese word tongdao, which we chose to translate as
| 'gateway', parallels the English word 'channel'--a linguistic
| coincidence that shows the intermediary nature of these
| businesses, which act as a channel for the circulation of both
| information and money.
|
| Exposition like this is so rare. I cannot upvote this article
| enough.
| frozenlettuce wrote:
| Here in Brazil, I've seen some people starting to suspect on web
| influencers for money laundering. Pick your niece/nephew, start a
| social media account, buy followers/likes then start laundering
| the money on fake ads and partnerships.
| Animats wrote:
| So that's what keeps USDT going.
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