Today ML is defined broadly so as to criminalize not only hiding the sources of illegal funds but the mere attempt (e.g., structuring) to enable financial privacy by hiding even legit money. On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:

2015-08-25 23:25 GMT+02:00 :

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Money Laundering is the thoughtcrime of finance. Anyone mentioning it as a crime is probably a law enforcement apologist.

The problem is that it's effective. Can't launder the money, can't use the money, don't have any use for the money. A lot of people (maybe? Wonder how many) people get caught years down the line because their expenses don't line up with their incomes.

The counterargument is that laundering is not that hard. Tricks like buying tons of lottery tickets with black money, but claiming only the massive value ticket. One could start an online software business, and create fake downloads/purchases for his/her software (pay tax, laundry complete). If it weren't possible, that would be a serious issue of privacy. We have at least one example of how the expression of your political believes is limited by observation: the anti-gay-marriage Mozilla CEO, who could not donate anonymously enough. Therefore he could not privately express his opinion through money/donation to lobby-group (a form of speech the US courts agreed exists).

Money Laundering itself is of no harmful consequence. It's good for the economy, as it makes money available for investment (good according to inflation fans). It does always follow something labelled illegal. Making it illegal (supposedly strongly) supports prevention of illegal things.

Should it be illegal?

I think it's good for humanity if it were legal. It's too easy to avoid law enforcement (these laws are not enforceable). It's a nearly complete loss of privacy if it is enforceable.

I'm not so opposed to having Money Laundering be illegal. I just think there should be absolutely no legal powers granted to police specifically to deal with Money Laundering. Anti Money Laundering torments our financial system and just isn't worth it. (NB: might be motivated by the TLA's to mass track everything and everyone for no good reason) (NB: Cryptocurrencies make black money much more useful, as it is the first time digital and untracked meets practical)