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Financial Watchdog Fears Bitcoin Money Laundering, When Bitcoin’s True Threat Comes From Honest, Hardworkers
In July, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, or AUSTRAC, issued a periodic typologies report, in which the financial watchdog reviews money laundering case studies as well as assessing new approaches for launder of the proceeds from crime. One of the “potential vulnerabilities” listed was digital currencies, such as Bitcoin.
And why wouldn’t Bitcoin be on the radar of big criminals like transnational corporations and national governments? Digital currencies like Bitcoin, after all, do offer an arena in which individuals and organizations can conduct transactions outside the realm of the dominant financial system in which governments and banks steal through taxes, regulations, fees and bailouts hard-earned money. Even Olympic champions from the U.S., those who take home the gold medal, will be taxed on the $500 in gold content nearly 50%. In the dominant financial system, our money is not our money. Zombie banks must consider it their own or else their entire business model would collapse. Their business models depend upon loaning out our money to people who will default and then be consumed by exorbitant interest. And this process goes on until the bank signals that it needs a bailout, when, with the full spectrum power of the state at their side, they can with the swipe of a pen wipe out the country’s savings and put into paralyzing debt the unborn.
“[Digital currencies] potentially allow individuals and entities to use them to conduct quick and complex transfers which are not regulated by authorities, making it a challenge for government agencies to follow the money trail, says AUSTRAC CEO John Schmidt. “New payment methods such as the use of digital currencies or virtual worlds are not issued under the authority of a government body, or backed by traditional currencies.”
And this is for the better. A government does not back a currency. A government stuffs a currency down the throats of a people making them work for an empty promise of stability and upward mobility. All the people get, though, is a medium of control to which they are beholden. There’s no other way to make money above board, because the government only accepts the fiat currency when it confiscates your money during sheering season, euphemistically called “tax season.”
The report admits that due to “tighter regulation of established or traditional financial channels” people will basically be forced to wade into the financial waters of digital currencies where they do not have to be setback by indulgences to their national governments. In other words, Murphy’s Law will see to it that individuals escape fiat currencies “backed” by national governments and wind up in free market concepts like digital currencies.
“At this stage, the misuse of digital currencies and virtual worlds for money laundering is still very much an emerging vulnerability,” AUSTRAC CEO John Schmidt says. “AUSTRAC is aware that digital currencies, such as those offered by Bitcoin, may become more attractive to criminal groups, particularly in response to tighter regulation and monitoring of established or traditional financial channels by both government and the traditional financial service providers themselves.”
Schmidt, you’re looking at this too narrowly, still. Bitcoin will become “more attractive” to not only criminal groups, but, in addition, honest and hard-working people. And by approaching Bitcoin from the framework that those who use it are automatically laundering-money will get a lot of honest people incarcerated and thrown into a cage for years. What we are dealing with through Bitcoin is a discrete, alternative payment system not to be exploited by criminals, but to be used to avoid criminals; namely, IRS Stasi thugs working for the private Federal Reserve to gut the country and send the proceeds offshore into private accounts enjoyed only by bankers and banker-cronies.
That’s the real reason Bitcoin is popping up on the radar of financial watchdogs. The digital currencies, so far, take up a small portion of global money-laundering. But, the digital currency offers a platform by which the world’s population can circumvent the mediums of control known as fiat currency to bypass tyrannical national governments and world-state globalists.
I believe it is for that reason that AUSTRAC, and other law enforcement organizations, “actively monitor developments across the range of digital currencies.”
The FBI stated in an April report that it believes “[Bitcoin] will become an increasingly useful tool for various illegal activities beyond the cyber realm… Bitcoin might … logically attract money launderers and other criminals who avoid traditional financial systems by using the Internet to conduct global monetary transfers.”
Perhaps the real threat, though, is that Bitcoin might logically attract honest individuals who are looking to protect their money from zombie banks and national governments that are doing everything they can—that is, confiscating wealth from every available pocket on the planet—to remain solvent. But, it’s not working. Having no other tools at their disposal than theft, national governments and illuminist banks will continue to overreach until that breaking point. What that breaking point will be is hard to decipher, but it might just be a mass exodus out of paper currencies and into not only precious metals and other tangible assets, but also into Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a way to keep your hard-earned labor, in the form of your earnings, out of the hands of money launderers and criminals inside the traditional financial system.
“By not being able to easily trace either the criminal or the placement of money, and coupled with the issue of which country should criminal proceedings be brought in, it is appealing to criminals who want to quickly launder money,” Dr. Clare Chambers-Jones, associate professor in banking and finance law at the University of the West of England, argues.
Seems that this utility can be useful to more people than just criminals. Since it is not easy to “trace the placement of money,” now the individual or organization need not worry about privacy invasions from bankers, and even tellers, who simply ask too many questions. The “see something, say something” culture has crept into nearly each facet of daily life and now bank tellers have the mantra “know your customer” drilled into their sheepish-skulls. The informant society is upon us in the form of “know your customer.” The following is expected of your neighborhood banker under FDIC regulations:
- Collection and analysis of basic identity information (CIP)
- Name matching against lists of known parties (such as politically exposed person)
- Determination of the customer’s risk in terms of propensity to commit money laundering or identity theft
- Creation of an expectation of a customer’s transactional behavior
- Monitoring of a customer’s transactions against their expected behavior and recorded profile as well as that of the customer’s peers.
Schmidt hints that AUSTRAC and the Attorney-General’s Department are analyzing the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 in light of emerging new, digital payment methods such as Bitcoin.
“The global use of electronic payment systems and new payment methods is set to continue to grow in coming years, as these systems evolve to handle high values and volumes of transactions and broaden in global reach. As their use expands, so does the threat of them being exploited for criminal purposes,” Schmidt says.
No. As Bitcoin evolves to handle high values and volumes on a global level, increasing numbers of individuals and businesses—honest ones at that—will see the merit in using such a convenient currency and begin to circulate it alongside fiat currencies. It will be a smoother, more discrete and less paperwork bogged-down transaction than those backed by governments because neither the government nor arrogant banks will be involved.
And to undermine the growing Bitcoin economy will take much more than an act of CONgress or even an act of the Executioner-in-Chief. It will take the much derided “global governance” that is flaunted-about by politicians and pundits.
“You need to get all countries to agree on a policy and this is going to be incredible difficult to get a consensus on because of the societal difference which underpin legislation,” Chamber-Jones says.
In the Bitcoin world, jurisdictions and boundaries and borders don’t exist.
Is your bank charging you 1/10th of 1% on all cash you deposit? Or are you paying a tax rate of 75%? It looks like the day of reprieve is upon us and the day of retribution upon overbearing states and transnational corporations that have abused the dominant-currency. Their arrogance is a big problem and, since they do not negotiate with their customers, their customers can now boycott them altogether, and the government regulators will be surely far behind.
2012-08-16 23:21:07
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