How do I legitimize/launder my time-travel plunder?

[Ranchoth]

Inspired by one of Skald's threads (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=571951), as you can imagine. And it kinda, mostly, counts as a GQ.

Here's the setup: I've (hypothetically) got a time machine, and I've used it to go into the and past get a small fortune. Actually, I've made two trips—I stole 500 lbs of gold from a Viking tomb 1000 years ago; and on the other, I managed to legitimately make $1 million in the United States in 1965.

Now, here's the deal: I want to be able to use the treasure in my everyday life in the 21st century—legally if at all possible. I don't mind paying taxes—but I want to keep the time machine a secret.

So, how should I do it? Walking into the local police station and saying, "hey, I found five hundred pounds of gold lying on the sidewalk...if no one claims it in thirty days, I can keep it, right?" wouldn't do it...right?

And for the purposes of the discussion, yes, I still have the time machine. Any thoughts?

[Candyman74]

I guess the $1 million in 1965 you'd put in a high-interest account and somehow leave it to yourself 50 years later. 50 years is survivable, so just withdraw it 50 years later. Make sure you use the time machine to set up various internet accounts in the meantime so you don't have to present yourself as a 90-year old who looks 40 to a cashier - ensure that the money can be handled remotely.

Or just bury it somewhere and hope for the best.

The gold - split it up and sell it in bits to various pawn shops and the like. Or find a private buyer willing to pay more for the lot than pawn shops will.

Ebay, perhaps? Or a private auction elsewhere?

If you're willing to deal with criminals, you can probably offload it for a good price easily. They'll make more selling it on, but you'll make a tidy sum.

[chorpler]

Inspired by one of Skald's threads (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=571951), as you can imagine. And it kinda, mostly, counts as a GQ.

Here's the setup: I've (hypothetically) got a time machine, and I've used it to go into the and past get a small fortune. Actually, I've made two trips—I stole 500 lbs of gold from a Viking tomb 1000 years ago; and on the other, I managed to legitimately make $1 million in the United States in 1965.


Assuming the gold has been worked into jewelry or figurines or something before being stored in the Viking tomb, presumably it would be more valuable as a gold artifact than just as a hunk of gold, right? But then you might get in trouble thanks to the assumption that you'd pulled a Lara Croft and gone rummaging through an ancient archaeological site and stolen valuable objects that should have belonged to the local government or university or whatever...

Wait, there's no way to date gold, right? If you acknowledged that it was gold from an ancient Viking tomb, is there any way somebody could run a test on it and say "Hey, this wasn't made 1000 years ago, it's brand new!"? It would be easy with something made of paper or other organic material thanks to carbon dating, of course, but what about gold?

[Fubaya]

You can't hide the $1million because there probably aren't many 1965 dollars floating around and walking in the bank with 1 million of them would be a little odd. So convert the cash to something else.

Since you still have the time machine, can you still use it? You could invest the cash then hop back and forth in time to collect from big payoffs and re-invest in others, or pull out a year before the investment goes down, etc.

As for the gold, dump it all in the ocean in a place you know no one will look. Plant a story in the past about a shipwreck but make the location wrong or leave out a page of information. Come back to the present and "find" the missing page of information and use it to "find" the treasure.

Or, there's always these guys (http://www.cash4gold.com/).

[tim314]

I say throw away the whole thing, go back in time a decade or so and invest heavily in a few companies that you know are going to do really well, then jump to each of the following years just to pay your taxes and keep everything legitimate. You could easily make billions without having to deal with a big pile of gold.

[Chronos]

Depending on where you are, you might be able to just bury it on land you'll eventually own, then say you dug it up while plowing or some other innocuous activity. In most jurisdictions, if you find buried treasure on land you own (or sometimes, even on land you don't own, provided you're there legally), it's yours to keep. The location dependence really just comes from how plausible it'd be that there'd be buried treasure, there: Depending on where you are, your treasure might be Roman, or Aztec, or pirate, or whatever (but you'd have a hard time explaining it away in Minnesota).

[GreasyJack]

Depending on where you are, your treasure might be Roman, or Aztec, or pirate, or whatever (but you'd have a hard time explaining it away in Minnesota).

Wouldn't raise any questions in the town of Kensington: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone

[Superhal]

I think it would be nearly impossible today to do this. It would raise too many flags and you would, at minimum, be put under surveillance by police, FBI, and/or IRS.

On the other hand, I think I have the solution for you: Instead of returning to 2010, why not return to 1997, just before the Internet bubble crash? People (especially law enforcement) were still woefully behind in electronic forensics and did not share databases with each other. You could then put the money by Western Union into Paypal, then either buy a bunch of stocks like Yahoo and Netscape, or sell a bunch short (like pets.com or something.) After cashing out, the money is completely laundered and virtually untraceable, and if anybody questions what you did, you can say either:

a. I made a bunch of money on penny-ante stocks during the 90's,
or
b. I got out before it crashed.

With either of the stories above, nobody will question how you got the money to invest in the first place.

Then, jump forward to 2001 and sell all the airlines short, jump to 2007 and buy land, and finally sell your land in 2008 before the crash. As a finishing touch, I would start buying land like crazy in 2009 just as it was going up again.

[EvilTOJ]

The 1920's was still an era of archeology that was little more than civilized looting. Take the artifacts to various museums and private collectors and auction it off. Sure, carbon dating may show them as 'fake' decades later, but who cares you got your cash, man! Once that's sold play the stock market back in the 1920's until about 1928 or so and sell them all. Then convert all your stocks to plain old gold bars from the US Treasury, then sell them back as the price of gold goes up. I'm not sure on how to get the gold bars yet, as they weren't legal for private citizens to own until 1975.

The $1million in 1965 is easy, just go forward 35 years and buy a Gray's Sports Almanac. Go back to 1965 and start playing the horsies! And baseball. And football. Use the original 1 million for mad money and save the rest.

[dtilque]

Once that's sold play the stock market back in the 1920's until about 1928 or so and sell them all. Then convert all your stocks to plain old gold bars from the US Treasury, then sell them back as the price of gold goes up. I'm not sure on how to get the gold bars yet, as they weren't legal for private citizens to own until 1975.

Gold was legal to own before 1933. However, you could probably find a much better investment. For example, IBM stock.

[psychonaut]

What's the worst that could happen if you openly tried to deposit the $1 million and sell the gold? Sure, you would probably attract the attention of the authorities, and might become the focus of an investigation, but isn't the onus on them to prove evidence of wrongdoing? Aren't they obliged to assume you obtained the money and gold legally, absent any evidence to the contrary? What are you worried about—that they'll manufacture evidence against you so as to support some trumped-up charge?

[njtt]

Why do it that way? Why not just go back a few days or weeks with some cash, place a bunch of bets on on sports or other events that you know the outcome of in your present (or buy stocks you know are going to rise sharply in value), then go back to the present and collect your winnings, all legit? I don't see what is stop you doing this repeatedly. Even if the bookies start to get suspicious after a bit, you have got a freaking time machine!

[don't ask]

Buy some Berkshire Hathaway stock for $19 in 1965. They are now trading at $118,014 each.

[DrDeth]

I guess the $1 million in 1965 you'd put in a high-interest account and somehow leave it to yourself 50 years later. 50 years is survivable, so just withdraw it 50 years later. .

In the mean time it's been earning cash but no one been paying taxes on it, so the IRS has levied it.

[DrDeth]

What's the worst that could happen if you openly tried to deposit the $1 million and sell the gold? Sure, you would probably attract the attention of the authorities, and might become the focus of an investigation, but isn't the onus on them to prove evidence of wrongdoing? Aren't they obliged to assume you obtained the money and gold legally, absent any evidence to the contrary? What are you worried about—that they'll manufacture evidence against you so as to support some trumped-up charge?

You would still have to pay taxes on it.

It will be next to impossible to avoid taxes or money laundering charges. We have already discussed this at length.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=566704

[Chronos]

Quoth Superhal:
Then, jump forward to 2001 and sell all the airlines short,I wouldn't recommend this. Nobody cares if somebody made money selling pets.com short, but a lot of people care very much about who made money selling airlines short. In fact, there was a disproportionate amount of short-selling of airlines corresponded to 9/11, and the FBI, CIA, etc. took a very keen interest in those folks after the fact.

[Superhal]

Quoth Superhal:
Then, jump forward to 2001 and sell all the airlines short,I wouldn't recommend this. Nobody cares if somebody made money selling pets.com short, but a lot of people care very much about who made money selling airlines short. In fact, there was a disproportionate amount of short-selling of airlines corresponded to 9/11, and the FBI, CIA, etc. took a very keen interest in those folks after the fact.

Yes, I thought about this...I'm thinking that since all the other time travelers are doing it, there would be safety in numbers.

[Peter Morris]

Why don't you just win the lottery?

[The Man In Black]

Why don't you just win the lottery?

If it were me, I would hit like 5 different lotteries in the same week just to mess with people. :p

[Robot Arm]

I guess the $1 million in 1965 you'd put in a high-interest account and somehow leave it to yourself 50 years later. 50 years is survivable, so just withdraw it 50 years later. Make sure you use the time machine to set up various internet accounts in the meantime so you don't have to present yourself as a 90-year old who looks 40 to a cashier - ensure that the money can be handled remotely.Instead of trying to use a false identity in the present, establish one in the past. In 1965, conduct your business using your father's (or grandfather's) name, or set up completely fictitious identity, if you don't want to draw attention to your family. It would have to be easier to do that kind of thing then, than now. Deposit your $1,000,000 into a trust, with an administrator to handle investments and taxes, and payable to yourself in 2010. When you return to the present, the trust is all yours.

[aruvqan]

Get known for going to estate sales and buying blind boxes ... you simply keep finding *stuff* in the boxes and selling it a few items at a time. Put your money in estate jewelry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_jewelry) when it is new and sell that as if you got it in your blind box. See, lots of people sell off great granny's cheap costume jewelry but do not realize that some of it is actually rare and valuable =) You can also manage a fair amount of bits and pieces of gold coins as many people collected stuff when traveling that are parts of womens dowry pieces (http://www.zawaj.com/askbilqis/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/jewelry_dowry.jpg). hell, I have made my own medieval turkmenistani clothing that is almost clanking with coins and assorted silver and lapis/coral/amber pieces (http://www.afghanrugs.com/jewelry2.htm). I used modern pieces, but you can find gold and gem instead of silver and glass stuff in museums, and people did collect the real deal, and it does show up in auctions =) You could be known for buying the estate blind boxes cheap [often I got them at $5 per box when I was a kid and dragged to auctions =)] and have really *good luck* finding stuff =)

[MarcusF]

In England the gold should be no problem. Under the Treasue Act if the hoard is found on your land it belongs to the Crown but you get the value. If you don't want to own the land just make an agreement to split the proceeds with the owner before you "find" the gold. Mind you 500lb may be a problem as it is way, way more than anyone has ever found before and would be worth more than any museum could pay! The Staffordshire Hoard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staffordshire_Hoard) was about 15lb of bashed up gold and silver items and was valued at GBP 3.3M - God knows what 500lb of Viking gold in pristine condition would be worth.

Do remember to plant it somewhere credible - plenty of places in England where Viking gold might be found - and try to make a real mess digging it up. The archeologists will be furious but you don't want them to realise it has only been buried for 10 minutes. :D

[dracoi]

I guess the $1 million in 1965 you'd put in a high-interest account and somehow leave it to yourself 50 years later. 50 years is survivable, so just withdraw it 50 years later. .

In the mean time it's been earning cash but no one been paying taxes on it, so the IRS has levied it.

The easier solution is to set it up as a corporation. Appoint an attorney and a CPA to manage and represent the corporation, keeping all filings and tax payments up to date. Make ownership of the corporation based on bearer stock. When you show up in the present bearing 100% of the stock certificates, you have a perfectly legal ownership claim to the corporation. As the sole shareholder, you can then dissolve it and distribute the assets to yourself.

[qazwart]

Inspired by one of Skald's threads (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=571951), as you can imagine. And it kinda, mostly, counts as a GQ.

Here's the setup: I've (hypothetically) got a time machine, and I've used it to go into the and past get a small fortune. Actually, I've made two trips—I stole 500 lbs of gold from a Viking tomb 1000 years ago; and on the other, I managed to legitimately make $1 million in the United States in 1965.

So, how should I do it? Walking into the local police station and saying, "hey, I found five hundred pounds of gold lying on the sidewalk...if no one claims it in thirty days, I can keep it, right?" wouldn't do it...right?

And for the purposes of the discussion, yes, I still have the time machine. Any thoughts?

Man, you do things the hard way. Raiding Viking tombs? Aren't there like curses you have to deal with? And, not to mention vikings who might not feel to friendly towards someone stealing their friends gold. (After all, that's what they were planning to do.) Why not simply go back in time, and play the stock market.

Back in 1998, I bought Apple at $8 per share (or something like that) when Steve Jobs returned to Apple. I sold it about a year later for $20 thinking about the great killing I made on the market. About a year ago, my son pointed out to me that if I held onto Apple until now, my initial investment would be worth over a million dollars.

Imagine buying Apple when it was at a all time low of $6 per share and riding it till 2000 when it dropped once more, then picking it up a few years later. Imagine in 1998 finding a couple of guys working on something called "Internet Searching" and offered them a few thousand dollars of funding. And, those two guys happened to have founded Google. Or investing in China before people thought it'd be the world's economic powerhouse. Make the right investment decisions over the years, and you'd have more money than that Viking gold without all the hassle of dealing with Vikings.

Or, if you want to do it the easy way, just go to next week (you've got a freaking time machine after all), find the winning PowerBall lottery numbers, and buy a ticket for this week. That's $37 million dollars and no one asks any questions about time machines.

[GHO57]

Like I say to all criminals with laundry needs.

Art is the answer.

Buy it, or even make it... it has literally no other value than what people are willing to pay for it.

Throw paint at a canvas, buy it off yourself for loads of cash, and report the income. Or use the time machine to go toss a gold bar at a starving artist... like Van Gogh?

[md2000]

Don't forget - when the FBI or Treasury gets ahold of gold, they can do spectroscopic analysis of the ratio of minute contaminants and effectively determine where it came from. (IIRC, this was a key point in some thriller novel about Nazi gold). So you will not only attract the attention of authorities but then have a lot of embarassing questions to answer about importation, how long you've had it, etc.

As others have pointed out, most "buried treasure" and especially shipwreck finds are heavily covered by laws that effectively take as much as they can get from you.

IMHO - Your best bet is to set up an obscure trust corporation in Switzerland or somewhere. Spend a few months or real-time building up its reputation, visiting the trustee lawyers every few decades in Geneva, and dropping off deposits from time to time. They can handle the niceties of obtaining and laundering cash for you - drop them a snail-mail from a few months before you need any spending cash.

For lifestyle in say, 1950's Monaco, you are the American nephew who inherited Uncle Archibald's vast european holdings, and hence all the bank drafts from Switzerland to finance your lifestyle. After all, if you have billions, why live in today when there's the 1950s? (Unless you're black, I guess). No AIDS, minimal mandatory reporting, no monewy laundering laws, plenty of tax loopholes for the rich and no pesky hi-tech databases to cross-reference data, Swiss Banks could maintain their privacy, etc.

[Chronos]

As others have pointed out, most "buried treasure" and especially shipwreck finds are heavily covered by laws that effectively take as much as they can get from you.Who pointed that out? The laws are actually, for the most part, finders keepers. The only way the government gets a share is through taxes, which would work the same way as for any other windfall.

[Peremensoe]

Gold was legal to own before 1933.

And since 1974, as well. (And from 1933-1974 with a license.)

[TruCelt]

Buy a house.

Find it in the attic.

Pay your taxes.

Buy bigger house.

[Peter Morris]

Who pointed that out? The laws are actually, for the most part, finders keepers. The only way the government gets a share is through taxes, which would work the same way as for any other windfall.

Depends where you are. In Britain, for instance, that is not always true. Depending on a number of factors it may be yours to keep or sell, or it may be Crown property (in which case you will be given the estimated monetary value of the find), or the finder may not have any right to it at all.

[Skald the Rhymer]

What's the worst that could happen if you openly tried to deposit the $1 million and sell the gold? Sure, you would probably attract the attention of the authorities, and might become the focus of an investigation, but isn't the onus on them to prove evidence of wrongdoing? Aren't they obliged to assume you obtained the money and gold legally, absent any evidence to the contrary? What are you worried about—that they'll manufacture evidence against you so as to support some trumped-up charge?

Trying to deposit $1 million in 1965 currency is foolish. You draw attention to yourself in at least two ways: the bills clearly are not in circulation, but give no evidence of the wear and tear they should have accummulated over 45 years; and of course the bank has to report the deposit no matter how you do it. If you try to deposit it in smallish batches--$1,000 at a time, say, so as to not trip reporting laws--the bank is still going to notice and you'll get dinged for that. The fact that your gains are not ill-gotten is little help, as you want to avoid suspicion. (I take it from the OP that you haven't any super-tech other than the time machine.)

[Skald the Rhymer]

Why don't you just win the lottery?

If it were me, I would hit like 5 different lotteries in the same week just to mess with people. :p

Again risky. You are drawing attention to yourself.

If you have invented a time-travell machine, you obviously live in a universe in which time travel is possible. If you've invented the device, then it's likely the US government and GE and the Russians and so forth are all either researching the possibility as well, or doing it surreptitiously. The parties already possing the tech may not care; but you don't REALLY want the Russians coming after you to steal your research and put you to work, no?

[TimeWinder]

Sure, carbon dating may show them as 'fake' decades later, but who cares you got your cash, man!

Pssst. The OP has a time machine. He can make anything as old as he wants it to be.

[jackdavinci]

In the mean time it's been earning cash but no one been paying taxes on it, so the IRS has levied it.

Is there no way to have the taxes automatically taken out? I remember when I had to cash out part of my IRA, I was able to have them withhold the appropriate amount of taxes. I guess technically I was still supposed to fill out a tax return, but I wouldn't have owed any taxes. And even for that, couldn't you just have an accounting firm fill everything out for you?

[Quercus]

I think the buried/sunken treasure is the best solution I've heard so far. Only issues are hoping nobody finds it before you (but if so, I guess you can always go back in time and move it after it would have fore-been post-found.. Ow, darn those time travel tense conjugations!) and for sunken treasure spending a year or two building up a treasure-hunting resume.

The other solution I like requires a great-grandfather (or similar) who lived in a civilized city. Go back, impersonating your great-grandpa and set up a secret self-sustaining trust, with rules such that your present self will be the major beneficiary (takes a little creative lawyering, but nothing impossible). Maybe even plant some evidence for a cover story (he was secretly socking away a few dollars each week, or maybe a huge gambling win. Even better if he was publicly opposed to gambling, which gives a plausible reason for him hiding the loot). Return, create a plausible reason for the trust being exposed and disbursed, and you're good to go.

[The Truculent Gentleman]

Given you have a time machine, you are thinking about it the wrong way - the most valuable thing you can have is information about the future, not any trinkets from the past.

Here's what you do:

1) Set up a nice cozy apartment/house with internet access and pay all your bills 2 years in advance.

2) Take your time machine 1 year into the future. Pop into your future-house and print out a daily chart of the SP500 or Dow Jones Industrial Average.

3) Go back to the present. Spend the next year investing/trading knowing exactly what the market is going to do. You will be as rich as you could possibly hope to be in one year, and entirely legitimate.

[Hari Seldon]

I had a thought. Why not bring back you gold hoard or whatever, openly sell and declare it and pay taxes. When the gummint comes around (as they will) to ask where you got it simply tell them the truth. Obviously they won't believe you but they cannot prove you lied. They will freak out if you offer to demonstrate and will do anything (even believe you) to stop from revealing your secrets.

There was a science-fiction story written many years ago. A girl is raised to the age of, say 20, made to memorize all sorts of things--stock movements, World Series winners, NFL champions ( think this predated the Super Bowl), NBA champions and the like. She gets pregnant. Then there is a singularity in time and she wakes up 20 years earlier, gives birth to girl and then raises her daughter in exactly the same way she was raised, while using the information he memorized to make a very good living. She realized that she would get to live the rest of her life with her accumulated wealth after her pregnant daughter disappeared.

[DrDeth]

Is there no way to have the taxes automatically taken out? I remember when I had to cash out part of my IRA, I was able to have them withhold the appropriate amount of taxes. I guess technically I was still supposed to fill out a tax return, but I wouldn't have owed any taxes. And even for that, couldn't you just have an accounting firm fill everything out for you?

Well, yes, withholding could be taken out, but the forms would not be filed. You could hire a Lawyer and give him a POA.