4 ms·

In my opinion, there's a good case to be made that money laundering laws themselves should be repealed[0]. But I'm afraid this is way outside the Overton window

In my opinion, there's a good case to be made that money laundering laws themselves should be repealed[0]. But I'm afraid this is way outside the Overton window at this point and "too big to fail" (see FATF, an international organisation which gets countries financially blacklisted for not complying with its anti money-laundering rules). People have forgotten about the old-school pre-1989 way of catching criminals with police investigations, gathering evidence of a crime, etc. [0] https://www.cato.org/blog/money-laundering-laws-ineffective-expensive https://www.cato.org/blog/money-laundering-laws-ineffective-...

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> pre-1989 way of catching criminals with police investigations, gathering evidence of a crime, etc. OFAC's predecessor was established in 1940. OFAC itself was founded in 1950 and expanded in 1977 [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_8389 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_8389 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Economic_Powers_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Econom...
- olalonde 4y ago
  Thanks for the precision. 1989 was the year the FATF was created.
nl 4y ago
> People have forgotten about the old-school pre-1989 way of catching criminals with police investigations, gathering evidence of a crime, etc. Nonsense. AML laws are precisely a way to ease police investigations. It's true that they aren't very effective against the largest criminals. That should be fixed by forcing disclosure of beneficial ownership arrangements but that has turned into a roadblock for investigations now precisely because AML laws mean police investigations can get that far. For example, police investigations used to be stymied by numbered Swiss bank accounts. Now AML laws mean that is no longer a protection, and now they are stymied by being unable to force disclosure of who is the beneficial owner of "This is not a criminal gang PTY LTD" from the Cayman Islands.
- from 4y ago
  >That should be fixed by forcing disclosure of beneficial ownership arrangements but that has turned into a roadblock for investigations now precisely because AML laws mean police investigations can get that far. For example, police investigations used to be stymied by numbered Swiss bank accounts. Now AML laws mean that is no longer a protection, and now they are stymied by being unable to force disclosure of who is the beneficial owner of "This is not a criminal gang PTY LTD" from the Cayman Islands. Are there any actual examples of this? Nearly every major jurisdiction, including UAE, BVI, all of EU, have UBO registers now (except America because despite having authority to do so FINCEN can't make a basic CRUD website). UBO in terms of actually stopping crime is useless because there is nothing that prevents people from lying about it. There are lawyers who will find homeless people to serve as straw men in just about every place in the world. If you're involved in drugs or large scale fraud the extra 2 years or whatever from lying on the UBO form doesn't deter you anyways since if you get caught it will run concurrent with the 10 years you got for your actual crime or it will make your plea deal slightly worse.
  - nl 4y ago
    > Are there any actual examples of this? Nearly every major jurisdiction, including UAE, BVI, all of EU, have UBO registers now In the EU alone as recently as 2021 Hungary, Italy and Lithuania didn't have any type of beneficial ownership registers[1]. Even in cases of lying UBO is useful for tying company structures together. [1] https://www.transparency.org/en/news/eu-beneficial-ownership-registers-public-access-data-availability-progress-2021 https://www.transparency.org/en/news/eu-beneficial-ownership...
    - from 4y ago
      I did not know that but the point largely still stands. Banks also have to do customer due diligence which is basically the same thing so they will have this info anyways. You can come up with an endless list of loopholes and then claim if only they were ended would AML laws be more effective. We’ve had 40 years of debates like this and there are always new excuses. The laundering techniques for drugs for instance now just look closer and closer to regular commercial activity (i.e. TBML) which makes it difficult for the government to understand what’s going on and ultimately prove at trial.
tsimionescu 4y ago
Are you claiming that laws that make money laundering an illegal activity should be repealed, or that the AML laws that are supposed to help detect money laundering should be repealed?

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> pre-1989 way of catching criminals with police investigations, gathering evidence of a crime, etc. OFAC's predecessor was established in 1940. OFAC itself was founded in 1950 and expanded in 1977 [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_8389 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_8389 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Economic_Powers_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Econom...

olalonde 4y ago
Thanks for the precision. 1989 was the year the FATF was created.

nl 4y ago

> People have forgotten about the old-school pre-1989 way of catching criminals with police investigations, gathering evidence of a crime, etc. Nonsense. AML laws are precisely a way to ease police investigations. It's true that they aren't very effective against the largest criminals. That should be fixed by forcing disclosure of beneficial ownership arrangements but that has turned into a roadblock for investigations now precisely because AML laws mean police investigations can get that far. For example, police investigations used to be stymied by numbered Swiss bank accounts. Now AML laws mean that is no longer a protection, and now they are stymied by being unable to force disclosure of who is the beneficial owner of "This is not a criminal gang PTY LTD" from the Cayman Islands.

from 4y ago
>That should be fixed by forcing disclosure of beneficial ownership arrangements but that has turned into a roadblock for investigations now precisely because AML laws mean police investigations can get that far. For example, police investigations used to be stymied by numbered Swiss bank accounts. Now AML laws mean that is no longer a protection, and now they are stymied by being unable to force disclosure of who is the beneficial owner of "This is not a criminal gang PTY LTD" from the Cayman Islands. Are there any actual examples of this? Nearly every major jurisdiction, including UAE, BVI, all of EU, have UBO registers now (except America because despite having authority to do so FINCEN can't make a basic CRUD website). UBO in terms of actually stopping crime is useless because there is nothing that prevents people from lying about it. There are lawyers who will find homeless people to serve as straw men in just about every place in the world. If you're involved in drugs or large scale fraud the extra 2 years or whatever from lying on the UBO form doesn't deter you anyways since if you get caught it will run concurrent with the 10 years you got for your actual crime or it will make your plea deal slightly worse.
- nl 4y ago
  > Are there any actual examples of this? Nearly every major jurisdiction, including UAE, BVI, all of EU, have UBO registers now In the EU alone as recently as 2021 Hungary, Italy and Lithuania didn't have any type of beneficial ownership registers[1]. Even in cases of lying UBO is useful for tying company structures together. [1] https://www.transparency.org/en/news/eu-beneficial-ownership-registers-public-access-data-availability-progress-2021 https://www.transparency.org/en/news/eu-beneficial-ownership...
  - from 4y ago
    I did not know that but the point largely still stands. Banks also have to do customer due diligence which is basically the same thing so they will have this info anyways. You can come up with an endless list of loopholes and then claim if only they were ended would AML laws be more effective. We’ve had 40 years of debates like this and there are always new excuses. The laundering techniques for drugs for instance now just look closer and closer to regular commercial activity (i.e. TBML) which makes it difficult for the government to understand what’s going on and ultimately prove at trial.

tsimionescu 4y ago

Are you claiming that laws that make money laundering an illegal activity should be repealed, or that the AML laws that are supposed to help detect money laundering should be repealed?