Why do people need to use Bitcoin for Money laundering?

[Kprawn]

Between 2004 and 2010, HSBC laundered Billions of Dollars for the Mexican Drug cartels and nobody blinked an eye. After

7 years of doing this, they got busted and they paid US$1.9bn in fines. {This could be recovered in profits, within a few

weeks} Most people saw this as a slap on the wrist for the people who were involved with this. Not one person working for the

Bank got jail time for doing this.    https://observer.news/featured/5-years-ago-hsbc-fined-record-us1-9bn/

Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for creating and running Silk Road, which allegedly facilitated

the sale of $250 million worth of drugs.

                                    Why are we seeing such double standards, when Bitcoin is involved?

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[Coffee135]

It turns out that bitcoin is a terrible tool for money laundering. The trouble is that all bitcoin transactions are tracked so if they want to catch you, they can go back into the system and figure out who you are.

Bitcoin bypasses the banking system, but my personal experience is that at least in the Pearl River Delta, that there is less dirty money in the bitcoin ecosystem than in the traditional banking system, which is one reason the Chinese government tolerates and even encourages bitcoin.

I have not heard the Chinese government encourage the use of bitcoins. All governments don't like bitcoin. But some governments forbid bitcoin by a strong-willed decision and some governments take a wait-and-see attitude. They do not prohibit or permit it. Fake money laundering using bitcoin invented banks to fight its main competitor.

[DooMAD]

The double standard makes perfect sense when you consider that the entire foundations of our fiat economy are dependent on the the success of banks.  Hence the phrase "too big to fail; too big to jail".  They can make an example of Ross Ulbricht because the US economy won't collapse as a result.  If the US locked up every banker that did something wrong and fined banks amounts that were more proportionate to their crimes, they'd effectively be shooting themselves in the foot head.  It would be fatal if major banks went under, so they'll keep doing everything they can think of to prevent that happening.  

Eventually, though, the banks will take that one step too far, where there's no coming back from it.  They're on borrowed time.  The bill comes due.  Until that point comes, a slap on the wrist is all they're ever going to get.  

[Arwinkim]

Between 2004 and 2010, HSBC laundered Billions of Dollars for the Mexican Drug cartels and nobody blinked an eye. After

7 years of doing this, they got busted and they paid US$1.9bn in fines. {This could be recovered in profits, within a few

weeks} Most people saw this as a slap on the wrist for the people who were involved with this. Not one person working for the

Bank got jail time for doing this.    https://observer.news/featured/5-years-ago-hsbc-fined-record-us1-9bn/

Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for creating and running Silk Road, which allegedly facilitated

the sale of $250 million worth of drugs.

                                    Why are we seeing such double standards, when Bitcoin is involved?

Bitcoin can be used anonymous, I think that is why most of criminals use it for money laundering. Because of its decentralization, almost all countries hate it as well. I believe it is more dangerous if it not regulated real fast globally. It has a side effect which is price might fall deeper but it will find its way to be clean from the dirty hands.

[vergel24official]

Bitcoin is clearly not the main problem, but it helps criminals to laundering money easier.Bitcoin is in fact use for people and criminals to hide money from governments for many reasons. If they had to use US$ the laundering is more difficult. Using Bitcoin the laundering is much easier because it can be value transfer between individuals, across international borders, and so forth. Using dollars is easier to track and catch criminals.

[Impros88]

Because bitcoin is perfect tool for money laundering its cheap and very anonymous nobody will trade you if you will use mixers and service like that.

[metenjean]

Its obvious that the main reason is because bitcoin is way easier, cheaper and also its harder to trace than using banking system. Eventhough you can tracked the transactions and the transactions are recorded, you can never now who owns it, someone can have more than 100 address to circulate and hide transactions between accounts and by the time you know which one is the right address, the amount of money inside already been transferred to somewhere else.

[jseverson]

Silk Road wasn't entirely known for money laundering though, so the situations are hardly the same. He was also charged for more crimes because of the broad scope of what was going on within Silk Road. I completely agree that there are massive double standards in place though. People have always said this, and I agree that Ross Ulbricht was simply made an example of.

Why are we seeing such double standards, when Bitcoin is involved?

I don't think Bitcoin is very relevant in this case. It could have been run in fiat and I don't think the result would change. Bitcoin was simply easier to use for illegal activities back then.

[Nilda]

The idea of anonymity and untraceability are two of the main reasons why criminal organizations are attracted to cryptocurrency.

[Kotone]

Between 2004 and 2010, HSBC laundered Billions of Dollars for the Mexican Drug cartels and nobody blinked an eye. After

7 years of doing this, they got busted and they paid US$1.9bn in fines. {This could be recovered in profits, within a few

weeks} Most people saw this as a slap on the wrist for the people who were involved with this. Not one person working for the

Bank got jail time for doing this.    https://observer.news/featured/5-years-ago-hsbc-fined-record-us1-9bn/

Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for creating and running Silk Road, which allegedly facilitated

the sale of $250 million worth of drugs.

                                    Why are we seeing such double standards, when Bitcoin is involved?

Bitcoin is just much easier to use and frankly I believe that a lot of other cryptocurrencies or even a lot of the payment systems in the world can be used and abused. Its just a matter of bitcoin having a much easier access due to its anonymity and a much more better groundwork kn some countries and places which are welcome to some institutions. The best thing we can do is to provide more information and advertising to correct this kind of thought towards bitcoin

[chengyinoing01]

Bitcoin money laundering is still a difficult thing for me.

Unless bitcoin is truly a substitute for an existing currency, the process of money laundering will always be; The process of usdt-btc-usdt means that there is always a need to go into the banking system where money laundering is now strictly regulated, and that all bitcoin transactions on the Internet will leave a good mark. In contrast, the money laundering of artwork is more reliable, faster and more profitable than bitcoin, so even if someone is using bitcoin to launder money, it is believed to be very rare.

[aoihs00]

That’s cool shit. I did not know that HSBC made scam over billions of dollars. The fines they have got was nothing in front of what they might have earned back in drug deal. They could have gotten more billions to leave the bank on its own for next fifty years or so. Lolz. Isn’t that is crazy thought that they have created out of the bitcoin.

What this means…? Yes off course it means that bitcoin is great way for money laundering.  

Also is there any specific reason why a bank needed to do that itself? What’s the point here that I am missing.

[TheQuin]

The double standard makes perfect sense when you consider that the entire foundations of our fiat economy are dependent on the the success of banks.  Hence the phrase "too big to fail; too big to jail".  They can make an example of Ross Ulbricht because the US economy won't collapse as a result.  If the US locked up every banker that did something wrong and fined banks amounts that were more proportionate to their crimes, they'd effectively be shooting themselves in the foot head.  It would be fatal if major banks went under, so they'll keep doing everything they can think of to prevent that happening.  

The fines levied on the banks are carefully calculated to ensure that they don't harm them. In effect, it is actually just another form of taxation. Think of it as the 'doing bad stuff' tax. Banks factor that into the calculation of what business they decide to do as an extra risk factor.

Money laundering using crypto is tiny in comparison and most of it has moved away from Bitcoin to more anonymous altcoins that are better suited.

[danniwide1234]

The double standard we are talking about is not without a good reason considering the fact that bitcoin because of its decentralize nature can easily be use as a tools for money laundering.This is even made more worse because no government have direct control of bitcoin and you know those in power we naturally go against what they can't control. Government will always favour the banking system though it is the major tools used for money laundering because they are in direct control of the banking system through the various policies they established which the banking sector helps to execute.

[Lucius]

The double standard makes perfect sense when you consider that the entire foundations of our fiat economy are dependent on the the success of banks.  Hence the phrase "too big to fail; too big to jail".  They can make an example of Ross Ulbricht because the US economy won't collapse as a result.  If the US locked up every banker that did something wrong and fined banks amounts that were more proportionate to their crimes, they'd effectively be shooting themselves in the foot head.  It would be fatal if major banks went under, so they'll keep doing everything they can think of to prevent that happening.  

Eventually, though, the banks will take that one step too far, where there's no coming back from it.  They're on borrowed time.  The bill comes due.  Until that point comes, a slap on the wrist is all they're ever going to get.  

I fully agree with you on this,politics always protects those who funding them before election,while they are in power and after.Banks and governments are closely related and depend on each other,just remember 2008 and how most of world governments saved the banks with public money,although the banking system was to blame for the financial crisis.

I bet many big banks do the same thing today,money is just money for them-there is no difference whether the money come from drug cartels or illegal arms dealers,it is only important that everything remains undiscovered.Even if that fails governments service will clean up for them.

[jerowacik]

Experts say bitcoin is becoming too mainstream, and therefore too risky, for criminals, so they're switching to more obscure cryptocurrencies

[avikz]

Between 2004 and 2010, HSBC laundered Billions of Dollars for the Mexican Drug cartels and nobody blinked an eye. After

7 years of doing this, they got busted and they paid US$1.9bn in fines. {This could be recovered in profits, within a few

weeks} Most people saw this as a slap on the wrist for the people who were involved with this. Not one person working for the

Bank got jail time for doing this.    https://observer.news/featured/5-years-ago-hsbc-fined-record-us1-9bn/

Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for creating and running Silk Road, which allegedly facilitated

the sale of $250 million worth of drugs.

                                    Why are we seeing such double standards, when Bitcoin is involved?

At least for HSBC, there were a proof and they were caught for this illegal transactions, because everything happened within the system. But for bitcoin it won't leave any proof, just a ledger entry in blockchain. It is pseudo anonymous in nature, hence governments are actually worried that bitcoin is the much better and cheaper option for money laundering. So it's not about double standard game played by the governments. Bitcoin has now become a favorite currency for illegal transactions like money laundering and terrorism financing. We as a common people, certainly don't want such nuisance to happen in bitcoin network because it's hard to catch. 

[NewBet]

All currencies are used for money laundering no matter what or how they are. Bitcoin is just one of the currencies and if bitcoin didn't exist there will still be people laundering money. People will always find a way to launder money although I don't think it is very easy to launder money using bitcoin since you still have to cash out the money at some point and still use banks,

[Xester]

Well bitcoin is used by money launderers to avoid the eye of the authority. But such moves are now a disadvantage to money launderers since the transactions can be easy traced using blockchain technology. That is why what they thought the anonymous transactions is also the thing that leads to their imprisonment since they never thought of the traceable transactions by looking at the blockchain records.

[filharvey]

It's because bitcoin is a decentralised currency not owned by any banks or financial institutions.Its true that bitcoin is used for illegal activities.I think that these financial firms are funding media to conduct a propagation against bitcoin as they suffer from bitcoin a lot and just misuse the media for the benefit of their interests.