[cornholio]

Money laundering is the action of obfuscating the origin of criminal proceeds; victims or clients of criminals do not generally commit money laundering, for example buying drugs is not a form of AML violation regardless of the legality of the purchase itself or the fact that the funds will later be laundered by the traffickers.

KYC is a tool to prevent money laundry and it's typically an obligation of financial institutions. Sending money to an anonymous (to you) recipient is generally not a KYC violation if you are not in the money transmitting business and you aren't doing the payment on behalf of someone else.

There are infinite shades of gray in this topic, of course, but I can't see AML being relevant in this particular case.

[dataflow]

I think they mixed up sanctions (and any similar laws w.r.t. legal recipients) with AML laws. The legality of paying sanctioned entities doesn't depend on whether the money was laundered, but they were interested in how people get around the former.

[rsstack]

Thank you! That's basically what I was asking.