[lemmox]

The vendor claims to buy beans from a Canadian distributor. It's not immediately obvious how to get from "bought beans in Montreal, sold Coffee in Toronto" to "funds frozen for doing business with Cuba." The devil must be in the details of the embargo.

[koolba]

Once something gets flagged as a potential violation, it turns into a guilty until proven innocent situation. Square has much more to lose than just some bad PR or the spread on $14K so they’re fine with freezing the money until they get a clear ruling from the US regulators that could put them in a proverbially vice. The name “Havana” probably tipped off something and now it’ll be stuck like that until a high enough exec decides to take the heat for cutting it loose.

If you want to try this out yourself (don’t do this...), send money to a friend via Venmo or equivalent, put something blatantly criminal in the description like “Heroin” or “ISIS tuition”, and see what happens.

[parliament32]

I've put everything from "erotic services" to "5kg of cocaine" in the memo fields of cheques, bank transfers, and interac e-transfers and never had an issue of any sort.

[tbyehl]

I always put something suggestive of prostitution when I Zelle money to my partner. Have not seized our money, yet.

[driverdan]

The US banking system is incredibly risk adverse. They do things like automatically flag transactions with words that might indicate a violation of US sanctions, such as Havana or Cuba. Venmo, for example, is infamous for questioning transactions with keywords like this.

[chrisgarand]

From my understanding of the article, they are Cuban beans.

TL:DR - Funds routed through the US are subject to US laws and regulation, no matter if the origin, and terminating point consider the act legal.

Long: If they held the funds, it's because someone at the ACH saw the business name, and automatically assumed that there was a potential liability (that happens, it's rare, but they will shut you out until you talk to them to prove your innocence).

If they were the more enterprising type, the person who made the call looked up their web site and read how they purchase their beans from Cuba. While fully legal in Canada, if the funds are routed through the US(I can almost guarantee it), JP Morgan can be held liable, and as such they would like to avoid the repercussions of the US government.