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I know it sounds a bit crazy but what if the government hired people to investigate and arrest criminals instead of requiring private companies to do that? AML

I know it sounds a bit crazy but what if the government hired people to investigate and arrest criminals instead of requiring private companies to do that? AML is a costly and ineffective security theater.

anonym29 3y ago
Plot twist: the government already does, it's even more costly than the private sector, it's still ineffective, and you get to pay for it!
- olalonde 3y ago
  Yes, that was the joke. The police should do their job and they are to blame for failing to identify (and to arrest) scammers and criminals. Yet the article blames it all on private businesses, who really shouldn't be tasked with detective work in the first place.
  - anonym29 3y ago
    Sorry, Poe's Law got me here.
  - petre 3y ago
    If blames the failures of these states to identify and shut down operations literally working against them. These crypto companies acted as intermediaries for financing Russian mercs with money out of drugs ops.
user3939382 3y ago
A common strain of anarchism proposes all security is private.
- logicchains 3y ago
  With anarchism there'd be no money laundering, because money laundering is the crime of "lying to the government about where you got your money".
  - fatfingerd 3y ago
    I think it might just get more complicated because without government's monopoly, and as shown in places where that wanes, anyone can decide people making money this way or that way are a problem they want to fix..
miohtama 3y ago
There are few problems with the anti-money laundering regimes, but these two are the main problems - They do not address the underlying crime: prevent the crime in the first place, instead of moving funds - The focus is on compliance, not on the crime prevention: make sure banks checks all the boxes on the form, so that no one will get a jail card Furthermore AML tends to mix sanctions (we don’t like China) with organised crime (drugs). The political sanctions themselves are not always direct result of a crime. What could be done to improve the situation - Making all company shareholder data public (was in the EU, but then a crook who worked for Russian oligarchs got this overturned https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/luxembourg-businessman-offshore-transparency-shutdown https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/luxembourg-businessm... ) - Make real estate agents criminally responsible for selling real estate for criminals - Focus on the largest asset flows (Danske Bank, London real estate) instead of setting up paper compliance procedures for consumers - Transparent funding flows (public blockchain)
empath-nirvana 3y ago
Everyone who is money laundering lies on the AML/KYC forms. The banks know this, the government knows this, the criminals know this. The point of all the AML/KYC stuff isn't to prevent money laundering, but to replace a difficult-to-prosecute crime (money laundering) with an easy-to-prosecute crime (lying on bank forms). It's creating a paper trail for the prosecution when the feds decide they want to take someone down. It's not money laundering per se that the feds have an interest in prosecuting. They have an interest in prosecuting sanctions evasion, tax evasion, black mail, drug smuggling, etc. It's the source of dirty money that they want to stop, not the dirty money itself. What happens is they think someone is smuggling drugs. They see they have money, the money looks suspicious, they get a warrant from the bank, they give them all their AML/KYC forms, and the feds go and track down the real source, and find out that the forms were full of lies and now they can get the drug dealer on bank fraud charges -- which means they don't need to connect them to drugs or murders or anything else, even if that's the real reason they're interested in them. AML/KYC stuff only prevents crime in that it forces criminals to commit other, easier to prosecute crimes to cover up their original crimes.
- olalonde 3y ago
  You are absolutely right, but I have two issues with that: 1) Non-criminals also lie on the forms. Mainly because it's sometimes their only way to open a bank account (if they are deemed risky by an AML department), even if they have a legal source of income. This renders people who would otherwise not be criminals into criminals. Just recently, I came across a Tweet[0] from someone who will have to face this dilemma sooner or later. 2) It's a loophole for prosecution, as you admit yourself. It's meant to circumvent well established legal principles. For example, in AML cases, the burden of proof is reversed ("guilty until proven innocent"). It's used as a tool to punish people for crimes when the evidence is not sufficient. Is this really something we want? [0] https://twitter.com/mikeinspace/status/1708719585556344993 https://twitter.com/mikeinspace/status/1708719585556344993
  - droopyEyelids 3y ago
    What you're describing is a tricky situation with trade-offs. When you face a tricky situation with trade-offs, you have to find a smart and/or complicated solution. It's not usually productive to say "just throw away the solution we have" even if that can be an emotionally satisfying answer.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

anonym29 3y ago

Plot twist: the government already does, it's even more costly than the private sector, it's still ineffective, and you get to pay for it!

olalonde 3y ago
Yes, that was the joke. The police should do their job and they are to blame for failing to identify (and to arrest) scammers and criminals. Yet the article blames it all on private businesses, who really shouldn't be tasked with detective work in the first place.
- anonym29 3y ago
  Sorry, Poe's Law got me here.
- petre 3y ago
  If blames the failures of these states to identify and shut down operations literally working against them. These crypto companies acted as intermediaries for financing Russian mercs with money out of drugs ops.

user3939382 3y ago

A common strain of anarchism proposes all security is private.

logicchains 3y ago
With anarchism there'd be no money laundering, because money laundering is the crime of "lying to the government about where you got your money".
- fatfingerd 3y ago
  I think it might just get more complicated because without government's monopoly, and as shown in places where that wanes, anyone can decide people making money this way or that way are a problem they want to fix..

miohtama 3y ago

There are few problems with the anti-money laundering regimes, but these two are the main problems - They do not address the underlying crime: prevent the crime in the first place, instead of moving funds - The focus is on compliance, not on the crime prevention: make sure banks checks all the boxes on the form, so that no one will get a jail card Furthermore AML tends to mix sanctions (we don’t like China) with organised crime (drugs). The political sanctions themselves are not always direct result of a crime. What could be done to improve the situation - Making all company shareholder data public (was in the EU, but then a crook who worked for Russian oligarchs got this overturned https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/luxembourg-businessman-offshore-transparency-shutdown https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/luxembourg-businessm... ) - Make real estate agents criminally responsible for selling real estate for criminals - Focus on the largest asset flows (Danske Bank, London real estate) instead of setting up paper compliance procedures for consumers - Transparent funding flows (public blockchain)

empath-nirvana 3y ago

Everyone who is money laundering lies on the AML/KYC forms. The banks know this, the government knows this, the criminals know this. The point of all the AML/KYC stuff isn't to prevent money laundering, but to replace a difficult-to-prosecute crime (money laundering) with an easy-to-prosecute crime (lying on bank forms). It's creating a paper trail for the prosecution when the feds decide they want to take someone down. It's not money laundering per se that the feds have an interest in prosecuting. They have an interest in prosecuting sanctions evasion, tax evasion, black mail, drug smuggling, etc. It's the source of dirty money that they want to stop, not the dirty money itself. What happens is they think someone is smuggling drugs. They see they have money, the money looks suspicious, they get a warrant from the bank, they give them all their AML/KYC forms, and the feds go and track down the real source, and find out that the forms were full of lies and now they can get the drug dealer on bank fraud charges -- which means they don't need to connect them to drugs or murders or anything else, even if that's the real reason they're interested in them. AML/KYC stuff only prevents crime in that it forces criminals to commit other, easier to prosecute crimes to cover up their original crimes.

olalonde 3y ago
You are absolutely right, but I have two issues with that: 1) Non-criminals also lie on the forms. Mainly because it's sometimes their only way to open a bank account (if they are deemed risky by an AML department), even if they have a legal source of income. This renders people who would otherwise not be criminals into criminals. Just recently, I came across a Tweet[0] from someone who will have to face this dilemma sooner or later. 2) It's a loophole for prosecution, as you admit yourself. It's meant to circumvent well established legal principles. For example, in AML cases, the burden of proof is reversed ("guilty until proven innocent"). It's used as a tool to punish people for crimes when the evidence is not sufficient. Is this really something we want? [0] https://twitter.com/mikeinspace/status/1708719585556344993 https://twitter.com/mikeinspace/status/1708719585556344993
- droopyEyelids 3y ago
  What you're describing is a tricky situation with trade-offs. When you face a tricky situation with trade-offs, you have to find a smart and/or complicated solution. It's not usually productive to say "just throw away the solution we have" even if that can be an emotionally satisfying answer.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]