That’s the whole point, though. In order to mask a large sum of money–like a million dollars–you’re going to need many times that amount to make it truly indistinguishable from normal income. Take your example of a musician; most professional musicians make less than $50,000 a year, many of them way less. Now, if you bring in $50k, and much of it is cash payments (or can be rendered as cash through a complicit party, say, as cover fees) then you can insert maybe an extra $5k without arousing suspicion. $1M/$5k/y = 2000 years. You’re either going to have to live a very long time or enlist the aid of a couple hundred of your most trusted friends to launder that amount of money in any reasonable time period.
Now, if you already have a substantial cash-throughput business, then it is relatively easy to launder money in the normal stream, which is the reason that organized crime was so heavily involved in the nearly unregulated gaming industries of Nevada and New Jersey in the 'Fifties and 'Sixties. But making up a business that brings in that kind of cash and making it successful (or at least, appear to be successful) is so much work that you should probably just burn the bag of money and concentrate on your legitimate profits that don’t have you risking jail time.
There are a few successful ways of laundering money if you have access to the banking apparatus of a large church or an NGO, and in fact, most of such organizations exist for the express purpose of being able to shelter or conceal the stream of money coming in from taxation and investigation. However, this is beyond the scope of the guy with a bag of money.
I’m not so sure you could only insert 5K a year. I’m also saying that in addition to this you could pay for certain items in cash, buy gear, take business trips, etc. I’m talking about using the money over a long period of time to supplement and improve a middle class lifestyle.
How about this, you record a CD to sell at shows, T-shirts, caps, whatever , except you create more than you can realisitically sell and pad the sales. Did you sell 25 CDs at a show, 20 Tshirts and caps. No you sold 50 each.
I’m saying that as long as you are careful to make everything look like a legitimate small business enterprise and you file faithfully, chances are you will never be challenged. Hell you might even use the money spareingly to acctually create a successful business.
As others have mentioned, forget the idea of using a Vegas casino to launder this money - you get an IRS form for any money you win over $1199 - and the casino turns those forms over to the IRS. And from personal experience, if you “forget” to declare anything, they will find it in about 2 years or so and come back asking for that money.
The good news for Nevada residents is that you can declare loses for almost any amount you win. For instance, a guy in our mail room won $85,000 on a football pool. He was able to legally declare $50,000 in gambling loses that year! (Despite the fact he didn’t even EARN $50,000 a year, or anything close to that!) As a local, they assume you play more, win more, lose more than non-Nevada gamblers.
But a million? That would be impossible to fake winning here without lots of legal IRS paperwork from a casino.
I suppose you could take the million and really gamble it - $100 here, $100 there - odds are you might be lucky enough to win half of it back over time and then legally declare that (and thus put it in a bank) and not touch that “legal” money winnings. Keep playing until the other money was gone. So, from your million, you might be lucky enough to “only” lose $500,000 or so to “win” the other $500,000. Better than nothing I suppose.
The trick would be to STOP gambling after the original million was gone - and trust me when I say the horror stories here prove that is not as easy as it sounds.
This is exactly what I’ve been trying to get at. Thank you for putting it so clearly.
If only you guys know that I’m going into the casino to “gamble” with $50,000 in a year, but everyone can see me come out at the end of the year with $40.000 in winnings, for which I pay taxes, is there any reasonable expectation that they would look hard at what I’m bringing INTO the casino? or would they accept the $40,000 as winnings, and just accept that I’m lucky?
Since I’d already be in illegal territory, I’d just discreetly seek out the same sources for laundering money as others in that situation do and be done with it. I can’t imagine sitting on it for years, trying to spend it without getting noticed.
I think the religion is the way to go.How about this: set up a web page announcing the new religion, and whatever tenets you want it to have. Among the facts is that you received a holy revelation that God listens to your prayers more indulgently than those of others.
Pad this with accounts of all the out-of-the ordinary good turns of events for the past year or so where YOUR prayers were answered.
Then offer to pray for what other people want. All they have to do is send you a letter with what they want you to pray for and a hundred dollars in cash.
Offer a money back guarantee if what they wanted doesn’t come true within six months, and scrupulousy follow through for the tiny number of idiots who actually send you dough. (What’s that going to cost you, a few stamps?)
Meanwhile, of course, you record that (number of your choice) people hired your services. Maybe keep a nice ledger: Joe from Denver (no detailed ID kept, for their “privacy”), wanted X, you prayed on (date.) Repeat for varying number of people each week.
Let’s see, if you averaged 10 “customers” a week, that’s $50,000 of “income” to report and bank. (Hmm. This assumes this money isn’t ransom or anything like that with recorded/markd bills.)
Combine that with the idea of spending cash on non-noticeable stuff, and taking really nice all cash vacations regularly, and you’d probably get all the money handled in, oh, a dozen or so years.
You think there are shady freelance money launderers? I suppose you can find yourself a crooked accountant who will help you out. Except that’s a pretty big risk. If the accountant is willing to help you commit a crime, then how can you trust him?
chances are if one actually found a bag with a million dollars in it it’s somehow illegal. Drug Money or something. I suppose it could be ransom money. Either way chances are nobody will come forward trying to claim it.
I rememeber years ago when there was some accident and an armored car opened and spilled out a bunch of money. A lot of average citizens rushed to scoop it up. The police had video and eventually contacted most of the people saying they were required by law to return the money. The problem was they couldn’t realisitically declare exactly how much each person had taken. They’re pretty sure some folks returned part and kept a chunk since a large portion remained missing.
A million dollars is enough that you could retire tomorrow and sustain a middle class lifestyle. But it sure isn’t enough to live extravagantly. If your investments on that million give you 5%, that’s only $50,000 a year to live on. You aren’t buying a mansion in Beverly Hills and a yacht and a private jet and a summer house in Tuscany with that kind of money. You can buy a very nice house in the midwest and live comfortably to the end of your days, but on the equivalent of a middle class salary. If you don’t quit your day job, then you’ll enjoy a significant lifestyle benefit, but again, you’re not gonna be super-rich.
If you start spending that money as if you were rich, you’ll blow through it in a couple of years, and be back where you started.
That poster stated if you didn’t relocate to a third world country, in a few months you would have gone clean thru the million bucks and be forced to crawl back to the USA on hands and knees. :dubious:
I don’t know how many countries that you have visited over the past 10 years or so is, but I can assure you that there are many places in this world (none of them in the “third-world”) where you could live pretty high on the hog for $50,000 per year, including parts of Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovakia, amd Croatia, just to name a few that I am personally familiar with.
Now I realise that if you WANT to blow a million dollars in a few months there are plenty of ways to go about it, and I also realise that it is not simple to just up and move to Prague or Pamplona, but for this hypothetical exercise, it is indeed possible to live VERY comfortably on a million tax-free dollars in the vast majority of countries around the world…
Yes - on the slots. I’ve cashed in several thousands of dollars in chips before with never a question asked or a form in sight. They have no idea how much you bought in for after all. I could be cashing out $10K after buying in for $20K. The people at the cage don’t know.
The point I was trying to make with the casino is that you don’t have to launder the whole million. All you have to do is establish where you might have come into $40K or so in cash during a few years time. Then when you spend the million in dribs and drabs, in cash, it is assumed that you are spending your winnings instead of found money.
It probably sounds stupid, but I think I’d just go with ‘Hey I found a million bucks; prove I didn’t’ and let the gov’t sort out what it thinks I owe them for something they had nothing to do with. Would be an interesting story; I’d definitely write about it.
Very side-note: When I was in college, I worked Alaskan processors/trawlers for about a year total. The first time I showed up with 8 grand in my pocket and tried to rent an apartment back at school, I was told they wouldn’t take cash. The bank wouldn’t let me open an account, as I had a <legal> state ID, no driver’s license. <Didn’t get a license until 26, when I bought my first car>. I had all kinds of money to spend, and nobody wanted it. I’m still peeved about that, and would love an opportunity to be well off and insist on paying everything in cash, just to see what would happen now.
I would bet that small-time crooks and jr. level drug dealers are doing this very thing at dozens of casinos around the world as we speak…
If you know what you are doing (and are patient enough to proceed at a pace that lets you fly under the radar) a casino is probably the safest place in the world to launder small amounts of cash.
