The number of customers doesn’t matter, it’s the number of dollars of throughput that matters and it may be possible to monitor how many chips are sold. I suppose you are right that falsification of that could be done internally with no third party way to verify the figures.
I think you were right in your first question concerning if it would still work. The gaming industry has significantly changed large casinos have really made it into a science.
Before, say 20 or 50 years ago then it would seem simple, but it’s possible that it could be difficult to launder large amounts of money.
I think this is the issue, right? It’s not tracked. AFAIK, if I am a rich guy, I can walk into the casino, buy $500k in chips, place bets at various tables, lose it all, and walk out and no paperwork is required for any of that.
If for some reason you need to make it look good for the videos, have a buddy who is not on anyone’s list come in with the cash, buy a bunch of chips, offer him comps which he declines, ply him with booze, and have him stay until he loses it all. See Mr. Tax Man, there he is, he just came in and lost all this money.
ETA: Maybe not $500k, but if we thread it in over time.
And even if the casino tracks the chips, I don’t see how they can track the cash going into the slot machines - if I put $100 into the machine, there’s no real way for them to know whether that $100 came from my own pocket or whether it my winnings from the last machine I played. I’m pretty much 100% certain they don’t track that cash ( even if they somehow can) because when I get points on my loyalty card, the points are based on how much I ran through the machine in bets, not on how much of my own money I lost. I can get points based on making $200 worth of bets even if I initially put only $20 into the machine.
There is no way I can imagine that the casino isn’t tracking how much cash you are putting in a machine, along with your play. They don’t tie it to your points, but it is a simple data point to keep and one that potentially gives them marketing information.
How is it a simple data point? I don’t understand how they can know if the $20 I put into slot machine #1 came from the money I brought with me or if it was part of what I won an hour ago at slot machine #2?. Although I will say that if they can and do keep actual records of how much cash I put in from the stash I arrived with, I suspect the IRS rules for W2Gs would be different.
How could they if people aren’t using rewards cards? People walk in and out of casinos all of the time.
How could authorities determine how much food I buy? And from where? If it gets to that level of scrutiny, the game is already over.
If you’re being audited, it should be obvious from the accounts payable who your suppliers are and how much you’re buying from them. And if fraud is suspected, the auditor can ask the supplier to show records of what was sold to you.
One more time, the IRS does not care if you are over reporting your income. That is not their job.
So then the hard part of money laundering is creating a system that will stand up to scrutiny. A hot dog cart can have depots of $100k a day and the IRS won’t care. But if the feds ever start investigating me and looking into my books, I would need to have a system that would stand up in court and keep me from being convicted.
But, unless you are suspected of another crime, no one is ever going to scrutinize your wildly successful hot dog cart. I doubt suspicion of money laundering is ever considered enough for a warrant or audit. I’m not sure how the laws are written, but doesn’t the prosecution have to prove that the excess funds came from a criminal enterprise? Money laundering is fruit from a more serious charge.
I haven’t heard about money laundering through car insurance, but it’s definitely a problem for the insurance industry. One method is to buy retirement insurance or a similar policy that pays an annuity, making the purchase with an up-front payment. This is especially handy if the policy provides an option to cash out after a period of time. Or really, any policy that allows you to cash out after an up-front payment. My understanding is that the money-launderer has to have the cooperation of a broker, and the broker both acts as part of the “layering” that obscures the source of the money being laundered, and the dissemination of the funds from a single source to multiple clients. Or the relationship goes through a further layer with an intermediary broker being the bridge between the launderer and the legitimate broker who interacts with the insurance company.
Apparently, some money laundering through insurance does happen where someone buys and insures some sort of property, has it damaged, and then claims on the property. However, I imagine that scenario is both more difficult and less profitable than purchasing annuities or refundable policies. The insurance company is going to require evidence of the value of the property and the damage that was incurred. They’re also going to cancel the policy, or increase it’s premium, if there are frequent claims. And if there’s a pattern of abuse, they’ll refuse to pay and report the claimants to the authorities.
Surprised that nobody has mentioned real estate yet. There are a number of different ways to launder funds by manipulating the listed price of a property and then making up the difference under the table.
For example, I’m in the Russian mob and I need to clean some money. I identify a real-estate developer who can’t seem to turn a profit. I offer him a deal in which he lists his property for a much lower price than he’d like, and then I’ll make him whole with illegitimate funds under the table.
We do the deal, and I get my clean funds back by unloading the property at market price (or better). The loose end is that the real-estate developer is holding a bag of dirty money, but I have blackmail material on him, so he’s faced with the task of either finding a bigger fool to clean his money, or finding some novel scheme to disrupt any investigations into his business practices. He may kill both birds with one stone by burning the dirty funds on sketchy attorneys who can clean the money via exorbitant “legal fees” while they pull various silly stunts to stymie investigations and create the appearance of persecution.
You’re right that money laundering has to be an attempt to conceal income from “specified unlawful activities”. Presumably that means that the launderer has to also be found guilty of some crime. However, there is a lesser charge of false financial reporting. Google tells me it’s covered in the US under U.S. Code § 7206 - Fraud and false statements. It’s “a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $100,000 ($500,000 in the case of a corporation), or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.”
I guess I think they don’t care. If you pull $20 cash out of machine, that is $20 that they don’t have any more. If you redeposit it in a new machine, that is once again their money. You could make the same point about $20 you pulled out yesterday and are now playing today.
I don’t do slots much, but I think the modern age has slips with bar codes on them that you can then feed into the next machine. In that case, they know it isn’t new money. But if you actually cash out of one machine and then put it in a new one (either today or next week), it is new cash in the casino’s pocket IMO.
I don’t have any factual knowledge, but I strongly suspect that if you’re using a rewards card, the casino is tracking your betting including your wins and losses. They won’t know whether you arrived with a particular $20 bill you put into the machine, or received it during the evening. But they’re probably aware of whether, during a $500 gambling session, you lost $20 or $200. If a casino is a money laundering operation and a gambler is a cash mule, they don’t care if that person has some wins along the way - they’re bound too. They just want to make sure they lose their stash on the night. Or at worst, let their bosses know they had the wrong sort of luck and roll it over to the next night.
Also, I strongly suspect the cash mules don’t use loyalty cards. There’s the benefit of knowing the mule actually lost what they were supposed to. But generating and storing evidence of criminal activity is a risk that probably overrides that benefit.
So what Federal agency does investigate money laundering if not the Internal Revenue Service? the Federal Bureau of Investigation? The Drug Enforcement Administration? The United States Secret Service? The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? The National Marine Fisheries Service Office of Law Enforcement(Yes an actual agency)?
Usually whatever agency is investigating the crime generating the money being laundered.
OK that makes sense.
It’s good to know that if I take more fish than I am supposed, sell it under the table, and launder the proceeds The National Marine Fisheries Service Office of Law Enforcement will be on the case.