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U.S. Bancorp (USB) is about to add a service for Somali immigrants in the U.S.
April 17 -
M&T Bank's purchase of Hudson City Bancorp faces a lengthy delay after regulators raised concerns about M&T's compliance with anti-money-laundering rules.
April 12 -
The exchange rate may be volatile now, but as the market eventually finds equilibrium and stabilizes, bitcoin will become an important store of value beyond restriction and confiscation.
April 11 -
Regulators reviewing AML rules could learn a thing or two from mall cops, says McGladrey’s Tyrone Beasley.
April 1 -
The bulwarks of financial privacy may, by default, become unsanctioned, underground networks like Bitcoin and startups run by youngsters brazen, or naive, enough to test the legal and regulatory limits.
February 12
When people hear the term money laundering today, they envision the most evil of acts, in which gangsters process satchels of cash through a fabricated company to show it as business revenue. Words and semantics are very important in this post-9/11 world, and as far as creating a negative connotation, that parlance has been extremely effective.
At its
Protecting one's wealth is interwoven with the history of trade and banking which has existed since the dawn of commerce. Sterling Seagrave's
Part myth, part rumor, the plausible tale of Mafia gangsters running huge amounts of cash from extortion, prostitution, gambling and bootleg liquor through existing Laundromats accounts for the phrase money laundering.
Also during this period, Al Capone was convicted in October 1931 for tax evasion, which is what earned the prosecutor's conviction rather than the predicate crimes that generated his illicit income. Capone's episode inspired Meyer Lansky, the mob's accountant, who structured elaborate international and Swiss financial facilities for safely securing money and vowed never to suffer Capone's fate.
Lansky is
Without any method of tracking cash or bank activity, Congress passed the Bank Secrecy Act in 1970, heralding the age of transaction reporting, including the Currency Transaction Report (Form 4789), the Report of International Transportation of Currency or Monetary Instruments (Form 4790), and the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (Form TD F 90-22.1). In the United States, the
Internationally, the elements of the crime of money laundering are set forth in the
From President Roosevelt's 1933
It's highly political and also a matter of perspective whether protection from confiscation is a justifiable activity. Government access to wealth is at the heart of the issue and it matters not if it's hiding money or cleaning money.
Therefore, the artificial crime of "money laundering" had to be invented, mainly because more direct and traditional methods of enforcing certain laws yielded little result. Think of it as driving without a lightbulb above the license plate being a felony because thieves might drive away in the night. All must participate in illuminating the way to be tracked. More than anything, this is a clear sign of regulatory desperation.
Money laundering has been called the
Moreover, money laundering is guilt by association. If the monetary flows resulting from associated businesses are deemed illegal, then the banking activity is defined as money laundering. But, in the absence of victimless crime laws against drugs, gambling, and prostitution, the majority of banking labeled as money laundering would simply be banking.
According to the
In his Rolling Stone article "Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail," Matt Taibbi
Even as the money-laundering laws are said to exist for the fight against terrorism or drugs or gambling, the
Jon Matonis is an e-money researcher and crypto economist focused on expanding the circulation of nonpolitical digital currencies. His career has included senior posts at Sumitomo Bank, Visa, VeriSign, and Hushmail. Currently, he serves on the board of the Bitcoin Foundation. Follow him on