[SUBMITTED] Dirty Laundry

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

'Tis the return of the guy with tons of drafts and none technically dumped. I present an issue about money laundering - it needs some work but I need the community's constructive criticism for this.

Dirty Laundry

The Issue: Notorious gangster Al Hattone has finally been arrested for robbery and extortion - unfortunately, upon further investigation of his supposed illegal money, no traces of it have been found. All in Hattone's possession were a few laundromat stores in which he invested in, yet they appear to have no connection to the stolen cash. The nation's top legal experts and investigators have come to you for guidance.

Validity: Moderate to high crime rate, moderate to high corruption, moderate to high political freedom (i.e. not a dictatorship), capitalism policy (or has a free market)

Option 1: "As you can clearly see, @@LEADER@@, my client has no connection to any of the supposed crimes charged against him," says Hattone's lawyer Edd O'Hare, wearing suspiciously clean clothes. "Obviously you cannot rob or extort someone without taking their money, and with no money to prove my client's guilt, there cannot be any case of robbery or extortion, thus he is innocent. Also, there is no possible way to connect those laundromats to my client's alleged crimes since they were clearly made in good faith. I have the documents to prove it." He then reveals to you numerous freshly-printed papers.
Fallout: Public enemies often walk home with spotless garments and crime records

Option 2: Suddenly, public defendant Frank Wilson enters, wearing suspiciously dirty garments. "It's too obvious that those 'documents' were printed just now, but that by itself is not a defence. @@LEADER@@, what Mr. O'Hare forgot to point out was Hattone's investments - for sure he wasn't rich, because if he was, he wouldn't need to do those crimes anyways. If so, where did the money for the investments come from? It's almost as if... he ran the money through the laundromats..." O'Hare suddenly turns to him and yells "That's why you've been banned from the laundromats!"
Fallout: Anyone interested in the stock market is investigated

[Must not have digital currency]
Option 3: "Actually, both of those solutions are for the previous generation," expresses CEO of Microcosm @@RANDOMFIRSTNAME@@ @@RANDOMLASTNAME1@@, bursting open your office door while wearing a suspiciously normal raiment. "What we need is a digital currency - one where you can track all payments, so that all of this legal nonsense wouldn't happen, as you can't really rob someone and investments are for all to see." Both O'Hare and Wilson simply stand in shock at @@RANDOMLASTNAME1@@'s statement, slowly waltzing away from his blank stare.
Fallout: To do the laundry you need a computer

[Must have at least some government control]
Option 4: "You all are business people, and thus cannot think of the best solution," says your very bored aide, who'd rather wear nothing at all. "Just make the government own all of the laundromats. That way, all of this business shenanigans could be done with. Regulating some industries would be okay as well." You see that even @@RANDOMLASTNAME1@@ left the room from your aide's droning, to which she replies "This only further proves my point."
Fallout: The clothes of @@NAME@@'s citizens are government property

Change 1: Reworked Option 2 entirely. It's still Frank Wilson though.
Change 2: Added Option 3, as well as slightly changing Option 2's fallout
Change 3: Slightly changed Option 1 and Option 2
Change 4: Added Option 4, as well as slightly changing Option 3
Change 5: Slightly changed The Issue (Premise), Option 1, and Option 2
Change 6: Added the validity for Option 4
Change 7: Finally added Option 4's Fallout

[Australian rePublic]

Option 2- That's called auditing, and I'm pretyy sure it can happen to anyone at any time. Money laundering isn't as simple as owning a business. Also the guy's an idiot. He should claim he won the lotto or something

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

Option 2- That's called auditing, and I'm pretyy sure it can happen to anyone at any time. Money laundering isn't as simple as owning a business. Also the guy's an idiot. He should claim he won the lotto or something

Money laundering works by using illegal money to invest in legitimate businesses. I guess I phrased it wrong... but I don't get what you meant about the lotto part.

[Caracasus]

Option 2- That's called auditing, and I'm pretyy sure it can happen to anyone at any time. Money laundering isn't as simple as owning a business. Also the guy's an idiot. He should claim he won the lotto or something

Money laundering.

Aussie, criminal enterprises can make a lot of money. However you can't really spend that money without drawing attention to it. When attention is drawn to it, then the police start asking awkward questions about why there's no accounting trail for all that cash.

So what criminals do is they set up a legitimate company that they can launder the money through. Usually these are businesses where it's very hard to track how many customers come through the door. Nail salons, cafes and hairdressers can be very popular. More or less any service industry where people tend to pay in cash can work for it. You wouldn't pick a car showroom though becuase again, tax people would look at the cars you have bought and look at your sales and start asking questions.

To give you an example Aussie. I sell drugs and make a profit of 100k. I could then have an interest or ownership of a hairdressers. All I need to do then is make up a load of customers. On paper I have a load more paying customers than I have in reality. This is much, much harder for anyone to investigate and that 100k drug money becomes 100k of profits from a hairdressers that is perfectly legal on paper and has all the correct taxes paid on it.

The lotto would not work because the police would look up previous lotto winners.

This is an interesting issue but I don't know if it has been done and cant easily check at the moment.

I'd consider the issue options as more ways of stopping this happening in future. Use this case as a springboard and have options open up different ways of stopping it happening again. Outlawing cash and just having electronic transactions would make laundering money harder, so you could have that as an option.

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

This is an interesting issue but I don't know if it has been done and cant easily check at the moment.

I'd consider the issue options as more ways of stopping this happening in future. Use this case as a springboard and have options open up different ways of stopping it happening again. Outlawing cash and just having electronic transactions would make laundering money harder, so you could have that as an option.

That would be an interesting option. I'll see if I could add it.

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

Bump stock

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

Second bump stock. I've heard they've been banned so I will be submitting this after the third bump.

[Chan Island]

O'Hare suddenly turns to him and yells "That's why you've been banned from the laundromats!"

Win.

My only real worry is the third option. You see, yes that is a completely valid choice, but I don't see it ageing in a way that is relevant. I'm pretty sure there already are public laundry machines that take contactless or phone payments, and I expect to only see these become more and more prevalent. And even if these don't exist yet, I see no reason why they wouldn't go down the route of vending machines and check-out tills in UK supermarkets.

Basically, you need to find a way in which you can make that last option more relevant in 10 years time.

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

O'Hare suddenly turns to him and yells "That's why you've been banned from the laundromats!"

Win.

My only real worry is the third option. You see, yes that is a completely valid choice, but I don't see it ageing in a way that is relevant. I'm pretty sure there already are public laundry machines that take contactless or phone payments, and I expect to only see these become more and more prevalent. And even if these don't exist yet, I see no reason why they wouldn't go down the route of vending machines and check-out tills in UK supermarkets.

Basically, you need to find a way in which you can make that last option more relevant in 10 years time.

I could do that. However, should I keep the third option creating the Digital Currency policy or should it be something else? That would really help since it could narrow down my ideas.

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

(Sorry for gravedig)

I've finally made a solution to this deadlock - Option 3 would be retained, but a fourth option would pop up proposing government-funded laundromats. Yes, I'll admit it's a bit wacky, but I couldn't think of any other solution.

[Jutsa]

Oh hey, it's not gravedigging if it's your own draft, especially if only 12 days have gone by.

Just today I bumped a draft of mine from 14 days ago.
In fact, one guy bumped a draft after maybe a year; ended up in the game afterwards. Pretty sure it was Down in the Groove.

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

Oh hey, it's not gravedigging if it's your own draft, especially if only 12 days have gone by.

Just today I bumped a draft of mine from 14 days ago.
In fact, one guy bumped a draft after maybe a year; ended up in the game afterwards. Pretty sure it was Down in the Groove.

Hehe...

Do you have any suggestions?

[Bears Armed]

I've finally made a solution to this deadlock - Option 3 would be retained, but a fourth option would pop up proposing government-funded laundromats. Yes, I'll admit it's a bit wacky, but I couldn't think of any other solution.

That's actually less "wacky" than some options in existing issues: Makes sense to me, for nations with interventionist governments. After all, there are RL nations (and even states within the RL USA, IIRC) that manage alcohol sales by limiting the trade to government-run shops...

[Trotterdam]

your very bored aide, who'd rather wear nothing at all.

Hey, there are nations where this is legal.

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

your very bored aide, who'd rather wear nothing at all.

Hey, there are nations where this is legal.

I'm aware. It's just so that 1) it can fit in with the other people's descriptions of clothing, and 2) so that non-nudist nations can still get that option. I could split it if required.

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

3rd bump stock.

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

Submitted.

[Australian rePublic]

Good Luck!

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

Good Luck!

Thanks!

[The Sakhalinsk Empire]

Bit of a gravedig, but SAl Hattone has finally made it. Thank you again to Zwangzug!

[Australian rePublic]

Congrats!