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by trgn 567 days ago
that isn't money laundering though.

I wonder that too fwiw, what's the exact mechanism with this banana NFT-purchase by which elicit money (from who (?)) is now being laundered as legal income (of who (?)). How does the process work?
1 comments
llamaimperative 567 days ago
Again, I have no clue whether this banana falls into this category, but generically and hyper-simplified: you have dirty money in a high-scrutiny jurisdiction, you buy a piece of art for $10MM, you move that piece of art to a more permissive jurisdiction and sell it for $8MM. That buyer gets a good deal and you just mostly cleaned $10MM for 20% in one transaction, which you can then layer into its now-local (permissive) economy for further cleaning before pulling it back out, apparently legitimately, to whatever jurisdiction you want.

You've avoided an international (currency) transaction of $10MM which would be flagged by pretty much every authority with oversight. Just two high-value domestic art sales, which happen all the time.

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hiatus 566 days ago
> you have dirty money in a high-scrutiny jurisdiction, you buy a piece of art for $10M

How does the sale take place? Cash? So when the seller deposits the cash, no one asks where it came from?

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llamaimperative 566 days ago
It came from an art sale… you can go read an article about it in the news, in fact, and sure you may think it’s ridiculous but that’s just because you’re uncultured and don’t understand Fine Art. People are demonstrably willing to pay millions for bananas on walls.

Obviously it attracts some attention (we’re here talking about it), but a whole lot less than a wire transfer of $10MM out of the country which would trigger SARs at several levels.

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hiatus 566 days ago
Ah so why do the sale at all then? Why not just deposit $10MM in cash at the bank and say it was from an art sale? Something is missing in your explanation.
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llamaimperative 566 days ago
Are you an artist who'd pass KYC for doing $10MM art sales...? If so, then yeah, you probably could do that.
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hiatus 565 days ago
So you're just making things up as you go along? You haven't really explained the mechanics at all and are doing a lot of handwaving.
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trgn 566 days ago
Any examples of this happening? Famous artwork being bought in us (high scrutiny preusmably) then sold in , i don't know, Switzerland (low scrutiny presumably). And then repatriated!!

Seems a lot of steps on the way.especially in crypto era.

Anyway, would love to see some real examples here. Why can't it just be exuberance, pumpanddump if we want to be cynical.

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