US crackdown on cartel money-laundering devastates mom-and-pop border businesses
The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses
A Trump administration policy requiring border-zone money services to report cash transactions over $200—later raised to $1,000—has crippled small businesses like El Paso's Nachita's Grocery. Owners say the rule, aimed at cartel money-laundering, has instead deterred immigrants from paying bills or sending remittances, and triggered lawsuits citing privacy and Fourth Amendment violations. Courts have blocked it in some states, but the burden remains.
“I don’t think it was to prevent money laundering,” Ornelas said of the policy. “It didn’t look like it from what I was seeing. I was seeing a lot of people who were just not able to pay their bills or not able to send money to their families.”
- graemep
We have similar problems in the UK. Lots of extra paperwork for small businesses and individuals, very little impact on big crime that was supposed to be the target. Just opening a bank account can be a pain, and more so if you are living abroad (whether a citizen or not).
- Aeolun
I'd say the law has achieve exactly the effect it intended.
- mdp2021
> a violation of the fourth amendment that protects the rights of people against unreasonable searches and seizures
So there exist juridical interpretations that call monitoring low value money transfer «unreasonable searches and seizures»? This is immensely interesting. Does anyone have further info?
- Krypto26
My question is , why don't these people have bank accounts?
- thinkcontext
I wonder how much this will drive adoption of crypto for remittances.
- ajross
This article is repeating a transparently false framing as the truth. This wasn't a law about cartel money laundering, which doesn't happen near the border anyway. Money laundering at scale happens in the global market and always has.
The clear purpose of the regulation was exactly the "side effect" detailed in the article: hurting immigrant communities that maintain ties across the border. And it worked. It does no one any good to pretend otherwise.
- vorpalhex
It surprises me how much Americans don't understand how deeply the cartel is in every transaction. Yes, sending money to Grandma to pay for a car is funding the cartel who probably got paid to make the car available. Grandma may even pay small direct bribes to the cartel just to be able to live her life.
Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) or we can make Mexico a safe and excellent country again, and that means getting rid of the cartel.
And yes, other countries have their issues too and we should help stabilize those countries as well.
If the Mexican government can fix their cartel issue, we can go back to normal remittances. Until then the US will make policy choices to resolve problems.
As always, the salt of the earth people will pay the cost for politicians being bad at things.
- OutOfHere
Money laundering is an absurd concept. People should be free to transfer money to whoever they like, without permission. It is a fundamental purpose of money. To deny this purpose puts the validity of particular money into question. Putting up fences results in a very high rate of false positives. No wonder people use crypto as they should.
If you want to go after cartels, then actually go after cartels. That's not what they're doing.