From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 13:12:08 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Why the world needs privay protecting Ecash
Message-ID: <ae1ec80d070210041aeb@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 7:17 PM 7/26/96, Lucky Green wrote:
>>>> S.KOREA PROBES 15,000 PEOPLE OVER CREDIT CARD USE - South Korean
>>   state prosecutors are probing 15,000 people for excessive use of
>>   their credit cards overseas in a crackdown on lavish spending, a
>>   prosecution official said on Thursday. [Reuters, 200 words]
>

Good to know that the U.S. will cooperate in these investigations. I would
hate to see these South Korean's spending "the people's" money in improper
ways...oops, am I confusing South Korea with the Benevolent People's
Republic of North Korea? Or are they just converging, just as the U.S. is
converging with the PRC?

Which raises a question about the laws in the U.S. on "structuring" of
financial transfers.

If Alice uses her U.S. VISA card to make many cash withdrawals at ATMs in
Zurich, Lichtenstein, Geneva, London, etc., are there any U.S. requirements
that she obtain and fill out reports (in triplicate) on these transactions?
Suppose the cumulative ATM transactions hit the magic $10,000 level?

I've heard folks describe this as a sure-fire way to transfer funds out of
the U.S. to offshore banks, without the risks of carrying cash (*), but I
wonder if any laws actually make this fall into the "structuring" penumbra.
("Structuring" refers to, for example, making multiple sub-$10,000
transfers so as to (apparently) evade the intent of the U.S. law on
reporting all transactions of $10,000 or more.)

(* Traveller's checks, cashier's checks, etc., are other options. One
Cypherpunk has some interesting ideas about using traveller's checks to
evade the U.S. requirements.)


P.S. Do you know that if you save $200 a week out of your paycheck and put
under your mattress, that after a year you will have saved $10,000? That's
the good news. Now, the bad news. Do you know that if you try to deposit
this $10,000 in cash in a bank, or spend it on a car, that an investigation
may be triggered? That your money may be taken from you in an "asset
seizure"? Unless you can prove where you got the money--rather hard in the
mattress example--it may be taken from you and never returned, even if
there is never a court case charging you with a crime, much less a
conviction.

--Tim May


Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."