[bduerst]

>I’ve dealt with AML/KYC for cryptocurrency businesses with much higher volumes, nobody ever asked for anything crazy.

Were they legit businesses or illegal?

It makes a difference because there's more than just you and the KYC exchanges reporting, and it's survivor bias to assume they appear the same.

[rosndo]

Legal businesses, receiving much larger individual payments from a limited number of clients.

> It makes a difference because there's more than just you and the KYC exchanges reporting, and it's survivor bias to assume they appear the same.

Exchanges are usually the least of your problems, it’s the banks.

Even very high risk businesses don’t face scrutiny which isn’t easily overcome when all of your incoming payments are anonymous and untraceable. It’s really not hard to create a fake ecommerce business that would be entirely indistinguishable from a real one.

[novok]

If you watch the other economic activity and internet activity of that e-commerce business, you could deduce how much activity it might be generating. No real e-commerce biz doesn’t have ad spend or other marketing activities, no e-commerce biz doesn’t have a sell rate that is %100, etc. Much like how the irs audits laundromats via their water and power usage. Are they consuming enough water and electricity to justify their revenue?

[dannyw]

nobody actually cares enough to bust money laundering if it's not causing publicly visible problems.

White collar law enforcement is an illusion, backed by the occasional example.

There are 13k FBI special agents and most have case loads focused on things like "murder" than some e-commerce website with traffic numbers that don't add up.

A one hour cursory look on public clearnet hacking forums will surface hundreds of felonies by people with poor opsec, Feds scroll past them on a daily basis. It's not what they're after.

And no, the IRS has been trimmed to bones for decades, they probably audit <10 laundromats via water and power analysis a year, the same way Apple built literally two iPhone recycling robots (that do a thousand devices a year) but spend millions on marketing.

[fer]

> nobody actually cares enough to bust money laundering if it's not causing publicly visible problems.

That's the harsh truth.

Where I live, THC is illegal, and its distribution usually ends with time served.

Interestingly, CBD (more accurately THC-less) stores are everywhere, taking prime locations in city centers, blaring thousands of positive reviews on Google Maps. Their top product is CBD oil (or rather, THC-less cannabis oil). Prices of their products are suspiciously similar to that of their illegal counterparts.

Yet when you pass in front of such stores, there's usually just a single person tending, sometimes with a friend because it gets boring as there's virtually no customer.

It's basically the caffeine pills + decaffeinated coffee product split, where caffeine is illegal.

Following the supply chain would not only find the laundering, but also the distribution and production of a substance considered illegal.

But cops stick to chasing dealers, and the fisc doesn't really chase businesses that seem to pay their taxes.

[rosndo]

First, nobody cares that much unless they know you’re guilty.

Second, just obviously spend a little money and time on those things? It’s a minor cost to run shitty ad campaigns.

The business doesn’t need to be good, it just has to look real. Do things a real business would do, except unlike a real business you will have a 100% chance of success.