6 ms·

Unless I'm missing something this doesn't really seem to launder the money. Sure you have converted bitcoin to cash but the cash still doesn't look like legitim

Unless I'm missing something this doesn't really seem to launder the money. Sure you have converted bitcoin to cash but the cash still doesn't look like legitimate income if you don't sell the books under your own name (which they clearly don't). So wouldn't it be easier to just sell bitcoin on exchanges like localbitcoin?

tantalor 9y ago
> the cash still doesn't look like legitimate income It would if you used your real identity for the "book" sales instead of fraudulent id. Then the proceeds are legitimate. Govt would have to prove you faked the sales, which is easy to hide.
- jonwachob91 9y ago
  It also doesn't seem that far fetched to actually write a 60 page book. One topic per book (civil war, computers, carbons, whatever) copy and paste wikipedia articles on various points related to the topic, some crappy pics, and bam, one day of work and you've got something you could claim to be a real book if anyone started investigating.
  - tantalor 9y ago
    Or just publish one of these: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Guitar https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Guitar https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Guitar.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Guitar.p...
- arctica27 9y ago
  I don't think it would be that easy to hide. It would be easy to dragnet and find suspects by getting Amazon to report % of purchases by gift card by author, and then following up manually with a few customers should be enough to filter out any false positives and snare the scammers.
  - tantalor 9y ago
    But what are you going to charge them with? Where is the evidence? The wrongdoing is hidden in the gift card purchases which you can't actually tie to the faker seller.
dsmithatx 9y ago
If you live in a western country it isn't a very smart way to launder the money as you will eventually get caught. If you live in other places it is a way to move the money without it getting flagged. I'm guessing that local bitcoin probably isn't popular in N. Korea or China.

tantalor 9y ago

> the cash still doesn't look like legitimate income It would if you used your real identity for the "book" sales instead of fraudulent id. Then the proceeds are legitimate. Govt would have to prove you faked the sales, which is easy to hide.

jonwachob91 9y ago
It also doesn't seem that far fetched to actually write a 60 page book. One topic per book (civil war, computers, carbons, whatever) copy and paste wikipedia articles on various points related to the topic, some crappy pics, and bam, one day of work and you've got something you could claim to be a real book if anyone started investigating.
- tantalor 9y ago
  Or just publish one of these: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Guitar https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Guitar https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Guitar.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Guitar.p...
arctica27 9y ago
I don't think it would be that easy to hide. It would be easy to dragnet and find suspects by getting Amazon to report % of purchases by gift card by author, and then following up manually with a few customers should be enough to filter out any false positives and snare the scammers.
- tantalor 9y ago
  But what are you going to charge them with? Where is the evidence? The wrongdoing is hidden in the gift card purchases which you can't actually tie to the faker seller.

dsmithatx 9y ago

If you live in a western country it isn't a very smart way to launder the money as you will eventually get caught. If you live in other places it is a way to move the money without it getting flagged. I'm guessing that local bitcoin probably isn't popular in N. Korea or China.