Going by comments here it seems that most people equate "turning stolen CC into money" as laundering, even though that money is dirty and indeed not laundered. The IRS or whoever isn't gonna be fooled.
"Money laundering is the illegal process of concealing the origins of money obtained illegally by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions. "
I'm not sure how turning stolen CCs into money is fundamentally different.
Because it doesn't, by itself, conceal the origins. Note that "unknown" origin doesn't count, as far as the IRS is concerned, they will still question where it came from and expect an answer.
As far as I understand it, the process of moving money through complex transactions is to make it look like it came from somewhere legitimate and making it hard to trace back to something that isn't, by mixing it with legitimate funding in a hard-to-see way or by making it come from an otherwise legitimate source[1]. The goal of money laundering is being able to point at a legitimate source and being able to claim that's where the money came from and the complex transactions are meant to make it look plausible or at least hard to disprove.
[1] eg: if I pay a utility bill with illegitimate funds and overpay and then they refund me, that refund may be seen as laundered, because the utility company is legitimate, which is why they tend to have restrictions around such things -- I came across this example when I was doing anti-money laundering training when I did contract work for a bank recently, although admittedly I might not be remembering all the details correctly.
I think we can distinguish between a technical and a colloquial use of the term "money laundering". Yes, colloquial usage would annoy people who have to deal with the technical definition, but I think instead of trying to dispute the colloquial usage, which isn't focused on the IRS, a better way for people to address it is that "it's not technically 'money laundering' in the eyes of the law, but should be referred to as 'xyz'" (whatever xyz term that describe it better). The way I was colloquial using it, was a way to get cash out of people's stolen credit cards in a way that would be difficult to track back to the thief.
some argue above that there's no fraud involved, it is people simply doing manufactured spend, that makes little sense to me, as there are cheaper and simpler ways of doing manufactured spend (I've done it!). Heck, just buy the gift cards direct from amazon.
That sounds reasonable enough, although I do question somewhat what the value of using it colloquially is, since it confuses the legality of it and, at least in my experience (which may be atypical), when people mention money laundering, its in the context of whether transactions or actions are legal or not. Although I have heard someone mention (once!) "legal money laundering", by which they really meant tax avoidance -- that is, moving money around in such a way as to minimize their tax liability. So maybe you're right about that! You're definitely right about how to address it, at least then people can correct it if they wish then.
> Heck, just buy the gift cards direct from amazon.
Indeed, unless you're out to commit fraud or legal-definition-money-laundering, there seems little point in jumping through the hoops.
"Money laundering is the illegal process of concealing the origins of money obtained illegally by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions. "
I'm not sure how turning stolen CCs into money is fundamentally different.