Should the FBI be going after high end prostitution?

[Tabula_Rasa]

@Wee Bairn

Unions!

Nah. It belongs on a par with baseball, with a Commissioner of High End Prostitution and everything.

[gonzomax]

@Martin Hyde

Uh-huh, unless he had been a Republican Governor, then the whole situation would be entirely different in your world.

Actually I have some experience with this sort of thing. I’ve very regularly moved $10,000+ overseas when on vacation. I’ve been told by my bank on many occasions, “We’re letting you know that because of blah blah bank secrecy act of blah blah we have to inform the IRS about your transaction since it exceeds $10,000.” Since I’m not engaged in illegal activity I never run into any trouble.

Due to U.S. law, when you transfer $10,000 cash or more, your bank has to inform the U.S. Government (I believe the first agency informed is the IRS, though I could be wrong on that.)

Note that this is only if it’s $10,000 in one day so for a lot of people this sort of thing never comes up.

Now, obviously the “duh” way to get around having your cash transaction flagged is to do multiple smaller transactions, better still multiple smaller transactions directed at several different entities.

This is what Spitzer did, it’s a common ploy, and one that isn’t terribly hard for the IRS/Banking Institutions to detect. Also due to U.S. law, if a bank has reason to suspect you are breaking up transactions in order to do just this very thing that Spitzer was doing, they have to inform the IRS.

This is how the IRS became aware of Spitzer. At first the IRS investigated it just like they would any citizen who was doing this. This is done regularly there was no witch hunt, as much as the Democrats on this forum who are shamelessly partisan and always trying to find an excuse for “their boys” would lead you to believe.

When the IRS found that these transactions were in fact suspicious, they at first proceeded with the fear that Spitzer was being black mailed (that’s actually not an unlikely outcome when you have a major government figure engaged in an illegal activity–one big reason we don’t want governors engaged in illegal activities like this whether we agree with them being illegal or not.) Eventually they came to believe it was simply an illegal act on Spitzer’s behalf and informed the FBI–they took it from there and that is how this happened.

The idea that this was a Spitzer-centric witchhunt is ridiculous. The legislation that lead to Spitzer get
ting caught was in place some 38 years before this happened.

So once they found it was not a money laundering scheme they should have quit,. He was not guilty of money laundering. Their mandate was over.

[Martin_Hyde]

@gonzomax

So once they found it was not a money laundering scheme they should have quit,. He was not guilty of money laundering. Their mandate was over.

Um, no, not at all. The IRS has valid authority to report this to the FBI and as a Federal police agency the FBI has a responsibility to investigate crime.

[mystified_expert]

The problem here is with the Mann act, which should be applied to minors only.

[Lemur866]

@D_Odds

I’m not so sure of that. Prices came down after prohibition because supply was plentiful. The supply of low cost hookers is kept up by…artificial…methods. If that illegal supply can be shut down, I would imagine that the price might be affected by the laws of supply and demand.

Or, the illegal practices which keeps prices artificially low will continue.

Or, I could be totally wrong and there is enough of a supply of women willing to sell themselves that cheaply of their own free will.

But the supply of low end hookers is also kept down by…artificial…methods. Like the cops. Everyone who patronizes a prostitute has to pay a risk premium because prostitution is illegal. Criminalization builds inefficient pricing into the sex industry on multiple levels…the girls can’t go to the cops when johns cheat them, they can’t go to the cops when pimps take their money, they have to give out free merchandise to the cops to avoid arrest, and on and on.

[Astroboy14]

Where are you people getting these $20 street corner BJs?

I got $20. I got a street corner. I got no BJ!