[freehunter]

The only thing I really have a disagreement with is the way I perceive your tone. Specifically "It's a made-up thing... We need to undo the marketing...".

What I'm trying to argue is, sure maybe money laundering shouldn't be a crime by itself, but it's not victimless and pure. There is no legitimate reason to launder money. Your claim in another comment that you might be embarrassed by your income source is not related in any way to money laundering. Money laundering isn't hiding the source of your income from people who might pick on you, it's hiding your source of income from the government. And the government only cares where you got your money if your source of income is illegal. They're not looking at your job and laughing at you. They're not going to send a Secret Service agent to your house and call you names. They're going to say "is that illegal? nope... did he pay his taxes? yep." and move on.

To be clear: lying to your wife about where you got your money is not money laundering. That's completely legal. Money laundering is telling the government you earned your money from a completely different enterprise to hide the fact that you obtained it illegally.

You know actually researching this and arguing it here has completely changed my opinion. I'm now 100% comfortable with the idea of money laundering being illegal and people going to jail for it. I'm not even joking. I'm changing my stance. Money laundering should be a crime. It is, at the very least, obstruction of justice.

[MichaelGG]

The implications of the mindset of "money laundering is a crime" is the problem. It's how we get this invasive government reporting requirements on our own money - which apply whether or not you are actually laundering. It is how we end up with these $10K rules, and people getting hit for structuring. (Which is even more absurd. Create a law to make people get reported at $10K. Then create another law so if they do less than $10K suspiciously, that's a crime, too!)

So, if AML tactics were not so draconian and far-fetched, if it was just a tacked-on charge (like how they'll throw wire fraud on to everything), then it'd be an annoyance and unfair, but not so harmful. Instead, we have this fearful environment because people think laundering is some terrible crime, and that makes it more acceptable to have things like civil forfeiture.

[freehunter]

Money laundering is a crime because only criminals have to hide the source of their income when it's paid in bank notes issued by the government. Don't like it? Ask your employer to pay you in untraceable gold doubloons instead of government-issued bank notes.

It's been a great conversation. It's rare that someone with a strong but controversial opinion on the Internet sticks around to defend it when they've been challenged. I respect your viewpoint even if I disagree with it.