Almost all large financial transactions or storage useful and active in commerce require KYC or reporting so the magic is the very act of privacy makes it illegal.
It sounds like you're mixing up a bunch of things. To be clear: do you have a single example of a person who was convicted of the crime of money laundering despite it being proven in court that the underlying activity wasn't illegal?
In criminal law people aren't expected to prove what they did wasn't illegal, it is the other way around. What did happen in the case of CZs conviction is the state alleged that lack of KYC allows some actors with illegal funds to pass through, making weak KYC checks an element of money laundering.
> In criminal law people aren't expected to prove what they did wasn't illegal, it is the other way around.
I very much understand that, but you missed my point with that constraint: the point was that if your objection is that legal underlying activity can constitute money laundering, then to prove your objection you need to show an example of provably legal underlying activity.
On the other hand, if your complaint is that innocent-before-proven-guilty isn't being upheld by courts, that's a fine complaint, but an entirely separate one from money laundering.
> What did happen in the case of CZs conviction is the state alleged that lack of KYC allows some actors with illegal funds to pass through, making weak KYC checks an element of money laundering.
In other words he did conceal illegal activity. Hence my point.
Every single bank and person conceals illegal activity by your final sentence. You probably have sold something for cash bought by a drug dealer and unknowingly laundered drug money.
The point here is that an unwitting actor is somehow guilty if they did not do KYC. By your standard basically every gas station near the border is a money launderer, since they know damn well much of the cash they take and transmit is drug and cartel money.
And that's the genius of this line of reasoning. There is nary a dollar in circulation that hasnt been used in crime.
Again, you're mixing things up and moving goalposts. I wasn't trying to make a case for what money laundering is, only what (as I understand it) it definitely isn't. The example you cite clearly covered up underlying criminal activity, whereas the claim was that you can be guilty of money laundering without any illegal underlying crime. Hence it fails to support the premise. That is all.
> all large financial transactions or storage useful and active in commerce require KYC
Not at all. I have authorised large wires without providing KYC or collecting KYC from the other party. My bank knows who I am. And I colloquially know the person I'm sending money to. But I haven't e.g. run them through OFAC.
I've wired non-USD from my U.S. bank and wired U.S. dollars overseas. I presume their bank is doing KYC. But I don't know.
You claimed "all large financial transactions or storage useful and active in commerce require KYC." That's simply untrue. It's advisable to ensure someone is doing their KYC. But not necessary.
Yes if you cutoff the first word it becomes untrue, how ridiculously disinguine.
Here's an exercise, look at the FATF black list and then start asking your bank about the process for wiring large sums there. A lot of this compliance is driven through FATF actions that drive any country that wants access to anyone touching dollars or us banks to comply.
No I haven't. For instance the nation of Myanmar is in the list. OFAC as far as I know would permit transmission to most people there
The black list is nominally about weak AML and other factors. It's an example I used because it's a list of places on the shit list in part because they may have weak controls on KYC.
FATF is a big driver if imposing KYC everywhere that wants to interact with a US bank or USD. I'm trying to show you if you actually try to wire somewhere with bad KYC I think you're going to have issues.