[jackpeterfletch]

In reality though, you wouldn’t ‘launder’ money that wasn’t ‘dirty’.

As an activity it’s basically always indicative of a crime. (Wether you agree with the law or not)

And by its very purpose, it makes the ‘base’ crime harder to prosecute and trace.

I think you’ve flipped the causality.

So I don’t think it’s so much that prosecutors just think it’s easier way forward, and if they put their mind to it they could prosecute the base crime, but don’t want to. As much as the laundering activity itself has made it too hard to prosecute.

[hakfoo]

I could imagine businesses in stealth phases trying to intentionally obfuscate their externally visible finances to keep a low profile. "Hey, $big_client, can you pay us through a chain of sham companies so it looks like you're buying office chairs from Crazy Teddy's Furniture and Waffles, so we can make a big splash when we announce our partnership at the launch event?" seems like something not that far out of line.

Legitimate firms might want to blur their supply chains and vendor relationships. If a manufacturer of some small component discovers the end buyer is Apple, for example, it might increase the temptation for "ghost shifts" and supplying extra components into the knockoff-product and aftermarket repair ecosystems.

[sowbug]

And VPNs are only for downloading child porn.