[laszlojamf]

" Bullough gives the example of a Mexican drug dealer who smuggles product across the border to the US. The drug in question would once have been marijuana, then cocaine, and is now likely to be fentanyl, which is cheap to manufacture and easy to conceal. The drugs are sold in the US for cash, which is used to buy, say, agricultural equipment. "

Wouldn't the person buying the tractor in the US for $$$ have to show where that money came from? Can you show up to John Deere with over a million dollars _in cash_?

[glitchc]

The short answer is yes. You can buy cars, trucks and tractors for cash. The more expensive the car, the easier it often is. Luxury cars in particular are routinely bought and sold for cash.

[margalabargala]

Luxury cars are frequently bought outright without debt, yes.

Literal cash, as in actual paper pieces of money, is not a common medium to do so.

[phil21]

Not in the US without the dealer doing all the same work a bank accepting $100k of cash in a duffel bag would be doing. Plus filling out a suspicious activity report on top of it all. They might have a real hard time explaining to the feds that they truly did "know their customer" from a simple form and a photocopy of your ID.

Some dealers might be willing to do this for you, but most will not. They will direct you to your local bank to deposit the money and get a cashiers check instead. They do not want the liability of it all. Perhaps better chances at the Ferrari dealer you've bought 14 cars from over the past 30 years I suppose?

I asked my (luxury) dealer if I could pay cash the last time I bought a car and they basically said “hell no, we haven’t done that in over a decade”. The risk of being caught up in some drug money investigation or whatnot is too great.

Coincidentally showing up to your bank with a duffel bag worth of cash to deposit is a great way to both get your accounts closed, as well as be added to a blacklist so it will be very difficult to open an account anywhere else.

[Tangurena2]

I used to work for GM as a field rep (in the 80s). There had been enough instances where finance managers skimmed/embezzled some of the cash (even before the feds required filing SARs) that dealers stopped taking cash as a policy decision.

[dataflow]

> Luxury cars in particular are routinely bought and sold for cash.

Cash? As in hundred dollar bills?

[caspper69]

Yes, duffel bags full.

But it doesn't take too many cash purchases that are not inline with your tax returns before somebody is going to start snooping around.

edit: although sometimes, a lot longer than one might expect.

[dataflow]

> Yes, duffel bags full.

Citation needed? Where did you hear that this is a routine occurrence? That seems risky for everybody involved, and it requires a report to the government from the seller.

[alibarber]

Selling a car usually does require a report to the government. Why would the seller care what happens down the line to the buyer?

[margalabargala]

Because the legal system in most Western countries is set up that the seller bears liability for laundering money if they accept duffel bags of cash for a car without the same documentation a bank would require.

[mikeodds]

Disappointly small bag to buy most cars with 100 dollar bills

[markvdb]

I don't know about the US. The EU limit on cash transactions differs by country, with a legal maximum of 10k€. Belgium and the Netherlands for example are at 3k€.

[cucumber3732842]

These people aren't walking into the dealer. They have tractor dealers in Mexico.

They're paying cash for a 20yo bulldozer that leaks enough to be a liability, loading it on a trailer and sending it home.