That’s what CLS posted in the wee hours this morning, but without a link to back up the claim. A Wall Street Journal article has the details (emphasis mine):
The account of Client-9's [Spitzer] appointment is part of a larger case that broke last week when federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged four people with organizing and managing an international prostitution ring, known as the Emperors Club VIP.
According to the complaint and the sworn statement, the Emperors Club arranged connections between wealthy male clients and more than 50 prostitutes in locations from New York and Washington to Paris and London. The club's Web site showed photographs of prostitutes' bodies, with their heads hidden, and ranked the women with a "diamond" system. Fees varied by rank, from $1,000 an hour to more than $5,500 an hour.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's inquiry began in October 2007, when it was triggered at least in part by a bank that filed "suspicious activity" reports on the New York governor with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, according to a federal law-enforcement official and a lawyer involved in the matter. Suspicious activity reports are filed with the Internal Revenue Service when banks detect something unusual either through their tellers or software, including transfers of large amounts of cash, unknown counterparties, or the use of known tax havens and money-laundering centers.
The bank was concerned that Mr. Spitzer might have been engaged in "structuring," a money-laundering technique in which transactions are kept beneath $10,000 to avoid federal reporting rules, the official said. There has been a massive federal crackdown on money laundering in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and banks have been extremely diligent in filing such reports. Those reports often include details of transactions done by innocent people.
The suspicious transactions by Mr. Spitzer are a major part of the investigation, the federal official said, confirming a report by ABC News. It isn't clear if federal investigators were engaged in a crackdown on the prostitution ring when Mr. Spitzer entered their sights as an alleged client of the ring, or whether Mr. Spitzer's transactions helped trigger a probe of the prostitution operation.
So, as we were discussing previously, one can forget financial privacy from institutions. Cash is quieter; and with the economic turmoil cranking up, it may not be a bad idea for risk avoidance to keep a moderate stash on hand anyway.
Hilarious!
I find it absolutely hilarious that "Mr. Clean" is now in trouble for something he sent others to jail for. The fact that he was caught using techniques that he pioneered makes my day.
Indeed!
But, since the lords and masters are usually exempt from the "laws" they enforce against others, I just wonder who he pissed off higher in the food chain... This whole thing was too pat.
Maybe Not.
Keeping a "moderate stash" sounds good, but it can lead to legal troubles, too. If a member of the enforcement branch of the TPTB finds your stash they can seize it at will. We've seen plenty of cases of that lately. Your best bet might be to keep an account set up out of the country, but even that is losing some of its previous safety where privacy is concerned. In the end you might be better off to just keep some money buried in jars in the garden....
Well .........
You are right, of course; and the whole bloody mess reveals how thoroughly our would-be owners have insinuated themselves not just into one’s business with financial institutions, but into the most fundamental market processes. When keeping one’s money at home becomes a risky venture, it’s well past time for a wakeup call.
However, the key word in your second sentence is “If”. First, one would need to come to their attention in some way; and then they would need some pretext for snooping through one’s stuff. I would think that even for the most vocal of us anti-state rabble, unless we were to paint a large target on ourselves, we simply aren’t worth the bother just yet. That said, having a carefully planned structure is still a good idea—especially if one can place some low-hanging fruit that would probably satisfy the JBTs that they’d gotten one’s stash. Creativity and quiet can be a hoarder’s best friends.
Well I certainly agree with
Well I certainly agree with Sunni - be creative and quiet in your dealings with the Govgoons.But you're just skimming the surface of creative resistance by only focusing on individual tactics.
What I'd like to see is more freedom minded folks opting out of the current banking/wage slave system and establish their own alternative(underground?)economic opportunities.If libertarians can get past their natural polemical tendencies to talk/debate ideas to death and actually take action to create real world agorist market alternatives they'll strike a powerful blow for freedom.