[acqq]

So how US managed to survive without that law for all the years? I can't imagine the law was necessary for anything, except that it allowed US to prosecute those who'd be off the hook otherwise. So yes I do believe it was the "War on Drugs" peddled as the rationale for the law: "look these drug guys are slipping away, we have to make a new law and get them with it."

[rayiner]

A lot of the financial transaction laws are contemporaneous with RICO, and were aimed at organized crime which is as a huge problem back then. Mafia families were conducting hits in midtown Manhattan back in the 1970's, in highly public places like high end restaurants. This is pre-1980's escalation of the drug war too.