Comment by treebeard901
3 days ago
The movie, Rebel Ridge, does a decent job showing just how bad this can be in a small town. It's not exactly realistic for how the former Marine depicted chose to try to resolve the situation... It does give room to consider just how corrupt it can all be. Consider if you live in a town with only one bank. Clearly the bank and the police have a relationship and in a small town, odds are they all know each other quite well. Say someone withdraws money from the bank. Then the teller sort of rats you out to law enforcement or someone adjacent to law enforcement. They manufacture an excuse to pull you over just as was done in this Nevada story. The movie Rebel Ridge goes into the difficulty in even getting your money back in the first place. At one point they explain a large part of the police departments funding comes from this. Then again, it isn't just small police departments getting kick backs, it's everyone involved to run up the cost for someone who had their money stolen.
At some point, civil forfeiture laws will lay the foundation for having any amount of cash being a sort of assumption of criminality. Consider too that smaller banks and even large banks have reserve requirements but not enough to cover all of the deposits. When most money exists in digital form in a database somewhere, over time, the concept of real paper money gets that assumption of wrong doing. Almost like it is the financial equivalent of "you must have something to hide, or else you would be using your credit card".
One of the more insidious versions of this is the static thresholds for things like "a suspiciously large amount of cash", which are not inflation adjusted, causing them to effectively shrink over time. A $10K cash travel limit established by the Bank Secrecy Act in 1970 would be over $80K in 2025 dollars. The law is structured so that the net is constantly tightening by default.
> When most money exists in digital form in a database somewhere, over time, the concept of real paper money gets that assumption of wrong doing.
It's already happening, and it probably just depends on the teller you get. I have no idea if it's policy or not, but I've been questioned pretty intrusively for cash transactions even under the reporting limit of 10k (see: BSA, CTR).
That limit was reduced to $500 and then back up to $2000. It's a multifaceted thing, now, that triggers a SAR.
https://www.fincen.gov/fact-sheet-industry-msb-suspicious-ac...
You are probably questioned more about cash transactions under the reporting limit. Over the reporting limit they file a form. Under they have to determine if they need to file a form.
Over 10k in a day of cumulative deposits will automatically trigger a CTR (currency transaction report). Amounts over 3k can trigger a SAR (suspicious activity report) but those are typically at teller discretion unless its a very specific circumstance like a customer buying $2500 in traveller cheques but has a typical average balance under some low threshold.
All those reports go to the banks AML (Anti Money Laundering) group who have to follow specific reporting guidlines from big brother. Lots of data is used to determine your risk level, which gets assigned tonyou when you open an account, especially a business account. Depending on the sic codes you choose determines how heavily you are scrutinized by the banks interal risk structure.
I could go on but you get the gist.
Source: too many decades in financial services orgs
The EU literally got rid of the 500 Euro bank note because it was primarily used by criminals for evading the law.
They literally did not. 500s are still currency, they just stopped printing them.
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> At some point, civil forfeiture laws will lay the foundation for having any amount of cash being a sort of assumption of criminality.
Already true in Brazil where I live.
It's just the financial arm of global warrantless mass surveillance. I highly recommend not allowing them to do this to you.
Brazilian central bank developed a digital centralized money transfer system called pix. You already know where this is going, right? At first it was great: instant, zero fees, no taxes. Right now the entire nation is angry about the fact our IRS equivalent will start using the pix transaction data to cross reference and audit citizens. If you move more than ~800 USD your financial data gets sent to the government automatically.
I like to believe that Brazil is some kind of test bed for dystopian nonsense like this.
They already did it with credit card, I'm actually surprised that they weren't already doing that, not sure if I understand the issue
> At some point, civil forfeiture laws will lay the foundation for having any amount of cash being a sort of assumption of criminality.
Although we don't have civil forfeiture, this is already true in The Netherlands.
Are you sure the "any amount" generalization is true? I know in Switzerland of money confiscated at border control for simple suspicion, but we are talking (tens of) thousands. Although there's a certain obligation of declaration those people always "forget", that situation stays shitty, but in any case it's a very very far cry from "any amount".
One Dutch party in the previous government tried to outlaw carrying more than €2000 in the street. As far as I know, that law didn't pass. Plus you can keep as many cash reserves at home as you want (but good luck getting any back if that gets stolen).
However, there are rules that make cash less useful for large payments. Cash payments over €10000 (€3000 starting in March) are outright banned without involving the government.
There are more practical problems than "I just really want to buy a car without giving out my bank account", though: more and more Dutch stores have stopped taking cash to reduce the risk and losses of robberies. You can still carry cash, but spending it may require some research ahead of time, and not every business is interested in the overhead of going through the money laundering prevention system when normal people usually just buy >€3000 stuff through their bank accounts.
If anything, the Dutch government has been telling people to have cash available in case of emergencies after "geopolitical tension" (read: the Russian invasion into Ukraine). Not that anyone seems to listen, but they encourage having cash reserves. They're still working out an exact amount to recommend, but a couple hundred euros seems to be most likely.
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If it were really 'any' in the philosophical sense, cash would be outlawed. So no, it is not 'any', it is anywhere between more than a couple of hundred to a couple of thousands, depending on what the police or prosecutor feels is reasonable.
What is wrong with a (couple of) thousand euros?
> I know in Switzerland of money confiscated at border control
You are describing smuggling, I was talking about normal domestic use.
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While I don't disagree with the general statement, I do want to add the nuance that this isn't true for small amounts of cash money. Recently, the government even recommended people to keep more cash on hand in case of emergency / large scale disruptions to the financial system.
Even with large amounts of money, it's not like they're knocking on doors, looking under yer bed.
What constitutes a large sum depends a bit based on the situation (or what kind of person you are!).
A 2020 study found the average seized was $1300: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
In some states, the average seized amount is in the hundreds, or even less: https://thewhyaxis.substack.com/p/cops-still-take-more-stuff...
In Chicago, they are taking amounts less than $100: https://reason.com/2017/06/13/poor-neighborhoods-hit-hardest...
"You are too poor to fairly have $100, so we're taking it" seems insane to me.
What is small and what is large is a matter of opinion.
If they are out to get you and can't find anything incriminating, cash will do. The press will happily report on this too : 'There was a police raid so and so, nothing was found but they found a (large) amount of cash'.
Furthermore, our government is planning legislation to make cash transactions > € 3000 illegal.
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Non-sovereign subjects can't be allowed to do whatever they want with their own money...
The reserve requirement comment feels out of place. Banks don’t keep their reserve requirements in physical cash.