7 ms·

Just to be clear, this is a step by step process for how to launder money, right?

vmception 6y ago
No, as it doesn't detail necessary reintegration into the economy. You will need to offer a service for crypto which you report taxes on. Your "customers" either pay directly in XMR which there is no trail on, or they swap the XMR back for a more likely used cryptocurrency like bitcoin or Ether, and pay you with that. So now it is. In any case as your lawyer might tell you: if the origin is illicit it is money laundering. If the origin is not illicit then its not money laundering. The irony being that it is the onus of the accuser to determine the origin, and if you do it right that is not possible to know in any scenario. Typically money laundering then is a tacked on charge, after other clear evidence is already known, to help ensure a conviction. But really at this point, its probably better if your public resources weren't spent on flagging transactions in the first place, and if the private sector was not burdened with doing this work for the state.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > If the origin is not illicit then its not money laundering It is if done for purposes of e.g. avoiding taxes or purchasing illicit goods. That said, obfuscation per se is not illegal in most jurisdictions.
  - vmception 6y ago
    so like an illicit origin? :) yes, people need to be aware of the universe of illicit origins. When I was working for the US government most of the people indicted under these laws (structuring, avoiding reporting thresholds, and then obfuscation so money laundering) were not terrorists or drug dealers. They were people like landlords freaking out because a tenant was suing them and they wanted to move their money without triggering a real or imagined $10,000 threshold. Whoops structuring is illegal straight to jail and we’ll take the money too! Tenant lawsuit still pending lol. All while HSBC completely undermined the ‘purity’ of the licit financial system in the tune of billions over many years on behalf of the LITERAL CARTEL. Guys, 9/11 wasn’t that expensive to pull off, and today’s compliance measures wouldnt have flagged those wire transfers, so who is this for? Stigmatizing the whole concept of having money and moving money has been an expensive and unnecessary and fruitless exercise. While increasing the costs of offering a financial service.
    - secfirstmd 6y ago
      Also obfuscating money can be important for an individual's safety. For example for victims of domestic abuse or human rights activists in repressive countries.
      - CryptoPunk 6y ago
        Also the safety of individuals against government overreach, like people living in Xinxiang or Hong Kong. Non-political checks on the power of the state, like cash and its electronic corollary, private digital currencies, are needed in case of the failure of the political system to prevent the state from becoming oppressive. An institution like physical cash can be powerful/deeply-embedded enough to survive totalitarian governments.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > so like an illicit origin? No. The obfuscation of licitly-acquired funds used for illicit purposes is still money laundering.
      - cerberusss 6y ago
        I doubt that is the case world-wide, right?
  - IncRnd 6y ago
    In the US, "tax avoidance" is a term which describes procedures that are always legal. When you stated "avoiding taxes" I believe you really meant "tax evasion".
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    > That said, obfuscation per se is not illegal in most jurisdictions. And it can't be, as long as fiat money exists. There's no tracing involved in passing notes around. The only times fiat transactions become suspicious is if you try and cross a border with a lot of cash or valuables on hand, which is where crypto comes in because it knows no borders. This makes law enforcement nervous. I'm sure that besides crypto there's many ways to move large amounts of money or valuables across borders though. The rich do it, they just set up shell companies and pay licenses for intellectual property, paying a token amount of corporate taxes.
- anon9001 6y ago
  What should someone do if they want to turn legal funds into anonymous crypto? Do you think BTC->XMR is a sketchy thing to do if the BTC is linked to your identity? I'd like to have some anonymous money just in case the future gets really dark, but I'm not sure if it's wise to flag myself as a BTC purchaser that changes to XMR.
  - eigenvalue 6y ago
    Best way is to find someone on a service like local bitcoins who can meet you in a public place and sell you btc for cash. You can wait a bit to get a couple confirmations.
    - thinkloop 6y ago
      It's too time-consuming and/or dangerous to do any meaningful amounts, and it is monitored. You would probably have to wear a mask at the drop as well and things like that. Safer to just coinjoin + mix + xmr.
      - The_Founder 6y ago
        From purchase of the BTC to XMR it can be traced so someone could know that you bought XMR and how much, just not what you did with it afterward. That would make it almost impossible to claim that you had just lost or spent the coins.
  - vmception 6y ago
    is that how you really think? stop using surveillance coins to begin with and just use Monero natively instead of as a conduit In the mean time pollute the pool by doing more lawful transactions in monero, monero is half as old as bitcoin and has only been used on darknet markets for half of that due to its older user experience challenges Just swap to the more fungible asset. Its a flight to liquidity the market always chooses that. The state just figured out how to use transparent blockchains as a tool a decade late and the market has already moved on
- gws 6y ago
  > The irony being that it is the onus of the accuser to determine the origin Not really, you need to be able to justify to the tax authority how you got in possession of any amount of assets you have and prove you pay taxes on it. So if a large amount of money eventually show up in your bank account (or you buy a house or any other "visible" asset) and it is not compatible with your previous tax returns it is likely the tax authority will notice it and at that point you are fried
  - vmception 6y ago
    That’s the point of reintegration. Reread that paragraph and dont skip it this time. You run a very successful fly-by-night VPS service paid for only in crypto. There is a decent sized market for that by the way. Too bad most of your customers are fake, anyway be diligent and actually mimic your customer behavior over TOR. Run a subscription service. Figure it out. Some to all of your customers will be fake because it will just be you making more accounts and paying yourself. Report taxes on your wildly successful SaaS cloud business. Assuming you even want govbucks, you deposit the clean crypto into your business and personal bank accounts. No different than cash based services except its online/digital native and not constrained by local market liquidity and brick and mortar overhead.
    - gws 6y ago
      You are right; also I would imagine the tax authority does not even care too much about where the money came from, they just want to make sure you paid enough taxes. Criminal investigation agencies of course do care.
      - koheripbal 6y ago
        The IRS has a criminal enforcement department, and they absolutely investigate criminals and press charges that have nothing to do with tax evasion. Often they work with other branches, but they are fully fledged FBI agents and can prosecute any crime they want. Usually they do that when they stumble upon them during tax/laundering investigations, but they'll prosecute anything.
neiman 6y ago
I's a guide on how to pay privately with cryptocurrencies. You should still report and pay tax for private cryptocurrencies. Privacy and tax evasion are not identical..
- vmception 6y ago
  correct, if the origin is illicit it is money laundering. If the origin is not illicit then its not money laundering. the licit private transactions are indistinguishable from illicit
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    Illicit money that you pay taxes on is generally not problematic, at least to the IRS. You probably still need to worry about other three letter agencies, though, depending on how it is illicit. Edited to add: I’ve heard of drug dealers doing it. Whether it’s true or not I can’t say.
    - dilap 6y ago
      how exactly would one do that (pay taxes on illicit $)? are there public examples of it?
      - grandmczeb 6y ago
        According to the IRS[1] "income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040 or 1040-SR), line 8, or on Schedule C (Form 1040 or 1040-SR) if from your self-employment activity." So I guess you'd just count it as "other income" on your 1040. [1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17
        vmception 6y ago
        Thats a trap my guy, you are incriminating yourself when reporting that That’s the point of criminalizing all options
zelly 6y ago
"Yes"
- vmception 6y ago
  “Yesnt”
CryptoPunk 6y ago
There are other reasons why someone would want financial privacy other than to commit financial crime, just as there are other reasons why someone would want communication privacy other than to conspire to commit a crime.

No, as it doesn't detail necessary reintegration into the economy. You will need to offer a service for crypto which you report taxes on. Your "customers" either pay directly in XMR which there is no trail on, or they swap the XMR back for a more likely used cryptocurrency like bitcoin or Ether, and pay you with that. So now it is. In any case as your lawyer might tell you: if the origin is illicit it is money laundering. If the origin is not illicit then its not money laundering. The irony being that it is the onus of the accuser to determine the origin, and if you do it right that is not possible to know in any scenario. Typically money laundering then is a tacked on charge, after other clear evidence is already known, to help ensure a conviction. But really at this point, its probably better if your public resources weren't spent on flagging transactions in the first place, and if the private sector was not burdened with doing this work for the state.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> If the origin is not illicit then its not money laundering It is if done for purposes of e.g. avoiding taxes or purchasing illicit goods. That said, obfuscation per se is not illegal in most jurisdictions.
- vmception 6y ago
  so like an illicit origin? :) yes, people need to be aware of the universe of illicit origins. When I was working for the US government most of the people indicted under these laws (structuring, avoiding reporting thresholds, and then obfuscation so money laundering) were not terrorists or drug dealers. They were people like landlords freaking out because a tenant was suing them and they wanted to move their money without triggering a real or imagined $10,000 threshold. Whoops structuring is illegal straight to jail and we’ll take the money too! Tenant lawsuit still pending lol. All while HSBC completely undermined the ‘purity’ of the licit financial system in the tune of billions over many years on behalf of the LITERAL CARTEL. Guys, 9/11 wasn’t that expensive to pull off, and today’s compliance measures wouldnt have flagged those wire transfers, so who is this for? Stigmatizing the whole concept of having money and moving money has been an expensive and unnecessary and fruitless exercise. While increasing the costs of offering a financial service.
  - secfirstmd 6y ago
    Also obfuscating money can be important for an individual's safety. For example for victims of domestic abuse or human rights activists in repressive countries.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      Also the safety of individuals against government overreach, like people living in Xinxiang or Hong Kong. Non-political checks on the power of the state, like cash and its electronic corollary, private digital currencies, are needed in case of the failure of the political system to prevent the state from becoming oppressive. An institution like physical cash can be powerful/deeply-embedded enough to survive totalitarian governments.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > so like an illicit origin? No. The obfuscation of licitly-acquired funds used for illicit purposes is still money laundering.
    - cerberusss 6y ago
      I doubt that is the case world-wide, right?
- IncRnd 6y ago
  In the US, "tax avoidance" is a term which describes procedures that are always legal. When you stated "avoiding taxes" I believe you really meant "tax evasion".
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  > That said, obfuscation per se is not illegal in most jurisdictions. And it can't be, as long as fiat money exists. There's no tracing involved in passing notes around. The only times fiat transactions become suspicious is if you try and cross a border with a lot of cash or valuables on hand, which is where crypto comes in because it knows no borders. This makes law enforcement nervous. I'm sure that besides crypto there's many ways to move large amounts of money or valuables across borders though. The rich do it, they just set up shell companies and pay licenses for intellectual property, paying a token amount of corporate taxes.
anon9001 6y ago
What should someone do if they want to turn legal funds into anonymous crypto? Do you think BTC->XMR is a sketchy thing to do if the BTC is linked to your identity? I'd like to have some anonymous money just in case the future gets really dark, but I'm not sure if it's wise to flag myself as a BTC purchaser that changes to XMR.
- eigenvalue 6y ago
  Best way is to find someone on a service like local bitcoins who can meet you in a public place and sell you btc for cash. You can wait a bit to get a couple confirmations.
  - thinkloop 6y ago
    It's too time-consuming and/or dangerous to do any meaningful amounts, and it is monitored. You would probably have to wear a mask at the drop as well and things like that. Safer to just coinjoin + mix + xmr.
    - The_Founder 6y ago
      From purchase of the BTC to XMR it can be traced so someone could know that you bought XMR and how much, just not what you did with it afterward. That would make it almost impossible to claim that you had just lost or spent the coins.
- vmception 6y ago
  is that how you really think? stop using surveillance coins to begin with and just use Monero natively instead of as a conduit In the mean time pollute the pool by doing more lawful transactions in monero, monero is half as old as bitcoin and has only been used on darknet markets for half of that due to its older user experience challenges Just swap to the more fungible asset. Its a flight to liquidity the market always chooses that. The state just figured out how to use transparent blockchains as a tool a decade late and the market has already moved on
gws 6y ago
> The irony being that it is the onus of the accuser to determine the origin Not really, you need to be able to justify to the tax authority how you got in possession of any amount of assets you have and prove you pay taxes on it. So if a large amount of money eventually show up in your bank account (or you buy a house or any other "visible" asset) and it is not compatible with your previous tax returns it is likely the tax authority will notice it and at that point you are fried
- vmception 6y ago
  That’s the point of reintegration. Reread that paragraph and dont skip it this time. You run a very successful fly-by-night VPS service paid for only in crypto. There is a decent sized market for that by the way. Too bad most of your customers are fake, anyway be diligent and actually mimic your customer behavior over TOR. Run a subscription service. Figure it out. Some to all of your customers will be fake because it will just be you making more accounts and paying yourself. Report taxes on your wildly successful SaaS cloud business. Assuming you even want govbucks, you deposit the clean crypto into your business and personal bank accounts. No different than cash based services except its online/digital native and not constrained by local market liquidity and brick and mortar overhead.
  - gws 6y ago
    You are right; also I would imagine the tax authority does not even care too much about where the money came from, they just want to make sure you paid enough taxes. Criminal investigation agencies of course do care.
    - koheripbal 6y ago
      The IRS has a criminal enforcement department, and they absolutely investigate criminals and press charges that have nothing to do with tax evasion. Often they work with other branches, but they are fully fledged FBI agents and can prosecute any crime they want. Usually they do that when they stumble upon them during tax/laundering investigations, but they'll prosecute anything.

neiman 6y ago

I's a guide on how to pay privately with cryptocurrencies. You should still report and pay tax for private cryptocurrencies. Privacy and tax evasion are not identical..

vmception 6y ago
correct, if the origin is illicit it is money laundering. If the origin is not illicit then its not money laundering. the licit private transactions are indistinguishable from illicit
- jtbayly 6y ago
  Illicit money that you pay taxes on is generally not problematic, at least to the IRS. You probably still need to worry about other three letter agencies, though, depending on how it is illicit. Edited to add: I’ve heard of drug dealers doing it. Whether it’s true or not I can’t say.
  - dilap 6y ago
    how exactly would one do that (pay taxes on illicit $)? are there public examples of it?
    - grandmczeb 6y ago
      According to the IRS[1] "income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040 or 1040-SR), line 8, or on Schedule C (Form 1040 or 1040-SR) if from your self-employment activity." So I guess you'd just count it as "other income" on your 1040. [1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17
      - vmception 6y ago
        Thats a trap my guy, you are incriminating yourself when reporting that That’s the point of criminalizing all options

zelly 6y ago

"Yes"

vmception 6y ago
“Yesnt”

CryptoPunk 6y ago

There are other reasons why someone would want financial privacy other than to commit financial crime, just as there are other reasons why someone would want communication privacy other than to conspire to commit a crime.