It’s Official: Cash is Now Public Enemy Number One

Thursday, February 11, 2016
By Paul Martin

by Don Quijones
WolfStreet.com
February 9, 2016

First Major Offensive in War on Cash

Terrorists are no longer public enemy number one. Nor are drug lords, people traffickers, arms dealers, cyber terrorists, or any other unsavory do-badder. Today, the biggest threat to global peace and security is physical cash, a means of exchange that has flourished for over 4,000 years but which now stands accused of being the world’s biggest enabler of criminality.

A Criminal’s Accomplice

The latest person to publicly highlight the deadly threat posed by cash is Peter Sands, the former CEO of the British bank Standard Chartered, who just published a report for Harvard Kennedy School of Government imploring central banks around the world to stop issuing high-denomination notes and bills. They include the €500 note, the $100 bill, the CHF1,000 note and the £50 note.

“Such notes are the preferred payment mechanism of those pursuing illicit activities, given the anonymity and lack of transaction record they offer, and the relative ease with which they can be transported and moved,” the report warns. In other words, only criminals use cash. High-denomination notes, the report adds, “play little role in the functioning of the legitimate economy, yet a crucial role in the underground economy.”

Sands is no doubt a leading authority on the role of cash in the criminal economy, having led a company that schemed with the government of Iran to avoid U.S. sanctions and “hide from regulators roughly 60,000 secret transactions, involving at least $250bn, and reaping SCB hundreds of millions of dollars in fees.”

The Rest…HERE

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