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Comment by olalonde | Hacker News Reader

Name one gas station that ever got charged for selling gas to a criminal.

In your experience, how often do criminals come in and tell the guy behind the counter that they need gas to commit a crime? Be specific.

That’s the difference: if you are aware that they’re making the transaction to further criminal activity, then you need to worry. You will find gas station owners who were charged: they’re the ones who helped fence stolen property or launder money.

But you are arguing, if you run a gas station, and you see a couple of dudes in a car hanging out on the opposite corner all day, and you come to believe that they are selling drugs out of their car, when they come to you to buy gas you have to refuse on the basis that you would be aiding and abetting and subject to prosecution? Is that actually what you believe?

This isn’t really a valid argument. Scale is clearly going to be a factor.

A couple of guys sitting around does not prove a crime and even if you had strong suspicion, you’re not a cop and letting them buy gas doesn’t materially support the criminal activity – the amounts are small and it’s the same service you offer everyone. If you’ll note that’s why I used examples which have lead to criminal charges where someone did something unusual which they knew supported criminal activity.

This is why anti-money laundering laws exist in the first place. Criminals would otherwise seek out a bank which doesn’t ask questions and the bankers would be hard to charge unless they were idiots and wrote something like “They are here for crime”. AML removes the ability not to ask or report certain types of activities, which is much easier to prosecute than e.g. proving that a banker should have known there was no legal way for a small Italian restaurant to be so profitable.

> In your experience, how often do criminals come in and tell the guy behind the counter that they need gas to commit a crime? Be specific.

And do you think criminals come in and tell crypto exchanges that they are about to commit a crime? AML regulations do not apply to gas stations as they're not "money transmitters", it is that simple. I'm a bit surprised so many on HN don't seem to be aware of that. And luckily they don't, because those laws are immoral, ineffective and costly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34667051

I’m not sure where you got the impression that anyone thought AML applied to gas stations. What were talking about was that in general various criminal conspiracy laws require you to have knowledge and intent, which is actually why AML is a special regulation on banks: you can’t say that you value your clients’ privacy over a law specifically obligating you to ask and report. That avoids the need to prove intent by setting specific easily-verified requirements which force the issue.

> And do you think criminals come in and tell crypto exchanges that they are about to commit a crime?

Well, ignoring the fact that they are unlike a gas station in having financial regulations, consider that the disbelief and mockery in this thread might have something to do with a defense based on not knowing that your customers are using you to launder money works much better when you don’t give prosecutors written statements such as "Like come on. They are here for crime." or "we see the bad, but we close 2 eyes." showing that you did in fact have knowledge.

I think there's a larger issue at play here. The standard for "knowingly selling" for AML regulated businesses and a gas station are vastly different. That's why you never heard of a gas station getting charged for that, and there probably never has been.

I believe the point was that AML regulations only apply to some categories of businesses and others not, which makes them ineffective. They can be a slight annoyance to criminals but they do not stop them. For money transmission, it is trivial to work around them. And for spending, at a gas station, there's no problem at all.

It is is just all a very costly and ineffective security theater, not to mention the many moral issues that come with it (e.g. billions of law-abiding, unbanked people).

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