[Rathorne]

Hey there,

Got hit with a thought experiment by a friend and I'm not sure where to go with it:

Let's say you (somehow) successfully steal a huge amount of money from ZOG and/or the Big Ten. In the billions of nuyen range. How do you keep them from being able to track it (and you) down? Largest certified credstick listed holds a million, so that's a thousand credticks if you steal 1 billion nuyen, which does not seem reasonable at all. Are there "uncertified" credsticks that hold more? Is there some other way to move/store such an amount without having a data trail that leads back to you? Note: the point of the source being ZOG and/or the Big Ten is that it would be insane to do it and require a method that even they can't track you down through.

Or is this simple and I just don't get the game well enough to see it?

[Mirikon]

Money laundering, my friend. First, you take your hot nuyen, and dump it on certified credsticks, despite 1000 credsticks being a lot. You want to break the data trail quick. Next, you go to the money launderers to get that nuyen exchanged, say 10 million at a time. The reason you do this is would be to break up the transactions so that things aren't immediately pointing at you. Someone steals 1 billion and then there's an 'anonymous' person trying to shift 1 billion? That's pretty much a red flag. So don't do it all in one transaction. Take those 10 million nuyen, shift it through the system, and eventually you'll have clean money. You're going to lose between 5-30% because of handling fees, but dodging corp reprisal squads is worth it. Repeat as necessary until all the hot nuyen has been changed into innocuous amounts, possibly in different megas' corp scrip as well as nuyen, and definitely in 2 or more accounts. Invest a good portion of it (there are stockbrokers that work exclusively with the shadows, afterall). And for ghost's sake, don't go throwing around money like some idiot that just won the lottery.

[farfromnice]

logically you need a lot of black credistick

you could change it in another money but in this case I will choose a physical one, like the one in Lagos

after that invest it, don't let it be, like tank, bazooka and weapon. Because someone is coming for you

[CitizenJoe]

I think you're confusing electronic money with hard cash.   When you say steal, what you should really mean is unrestricted access.  Money, especially digital money, doesn't have an inherent value.  It's value is what you can get for it.  You're not going to get a billion nuyen thing.  You're going to spend it in sub hundred thousand nuyen chunks, and usually under a thousand.  So, you leave it right where it is and just draw from it as needed.

[Magnaric]

Uhm Joe, what the heck are you talking about, and how does that have anything to do with what he asked? The ZO bank isn't going to let you have any sort of access to their accounts,  small transactions or not. Unless you mean unrestricted access to an account the thief sets up, to use smaller transactions,  bit setting up that account in the first place will likely get noticed by them, as Mirikon pointed out.

And all curremcy's value is worth what you use it for, digital or otherwise. A country where your dollar is worth a dollar will let you get a lot further than a country where the exchange rate is 60%. So I don't understand the "value is what you get for it" statement as it applies to digital currency.

[CitizenJoe]

They didn't fly up to Z-O and take a billion nuyen in cash.  Somehow, they got access to a billion nuyen, likely an account.  What I'm saying is that they don't move the money, rather they protect that access.  The big problem, and this applies pretty much anywhere, is that larger purchases require greater SIN verification.  A car would take a rating 4 check minimum, while a house (mortgage) would be rating 5.  A million nuyen transfer would take a rating 6 SIN check.  So, that's kind of unreliable.

[Magnaric]

Okay, that makes more sense. Your first post didn't make that very clear is all. While I like the idea of keeping the secret access to the account open, that might become extremely difficult to manage unnoticed for any length of time. Just depends on whether it'd be more trouble to put the time/resources towards long-term hiding and protection of the back door to the account, as opposed to trying to steal the money and erase your data trail to the point where tracking down where the money went and who it went to becomes nigh-impossible.

Also, I would like to point out that Rathorne had the original hypothetical as stealing the money, not keeping an account access hidden.

[Rathorne]

The point of my question is that you're going in, transferring/taking the money, and you're gone. Not making multiple visits to an account and hoping some corp number cruncher doesn't notice the withdrawals and getting the account flagged to set off an alert when the next withdrawal happens.

[Mirikon]

Joe is correct that if you have some means of covertly accessing the account over time, small withdrawals won't be likely to raise red flags. Of course, every time you access the account, you raise your chances of getting caught in an internal audit.

If you drain the account, there will be a data trail leading to whatever dummy account you send it to. From there, you'll need to quickly send it through the wash to break the data trail. Unlike cash, all those zeroes and ones leave a trail, which is why dumping it on certified credsticks and sending it to a money launderer is the first step to avoiding corp reprisal teams. The second step, of course, is to skip town for a while, maybe set up shop in another sprawl. And, of course, keep your trap shut about how you got your startup money.

[Rathorne]

Bumping this to thank those who answered. Thanks.

So what I'm getting from this is, unless I leave the money in the original account(s) and access it over time (which is not in the spirit of the thought experiment), I have to get 1000 Ebony certified credsticks per billion stolen. There's no other way to get that large of a sum of money into a portable form that meets my criteria?

(Yes, I get the money laundering part too, but that's the following step. The point of my question was getting the nuyen portable. Whether I draw the nuyen directly onto the credsticks somehow, or have a dummy account to dump the money into first, the answer appears to be the same)

If that's the only option, so be it. If not, other ideas?

[jim1701]

Though to quote the late Hans Gruber:

Well, when you steal $600, you can just disappear. When you steal 600 million, they will find you, unless they think you're already dead.

[Mirikon]

Bumping this to thank those who answered. Thanks.

So what I'm getting from this is, unless I leave the money in the original account(s) and access it over time (which is not in the spirit of the thought experiment), I have to get 1000 Ebony certified credsticks per billion stolen. There's no other way to get that large of a sum of money into a portable form that meets my criteria?

(Yes, I get the money laundering part too, but that's the following step. The point of my question was getting the nuyen portable. Whether I draw the nuyen directly onto the credsticks somehow, or have a dummy account to dump the money into first, the answer appears to be the same)

If that's the only option, so be it. If not, other ideas?

You CAN directly transfer the funds to another account, of course, skipping the credstick phase. But that leaves a massive data trail that anyone will follow straight to your door (or the door of whatever shadow-bank you use). This is a good way to burn contacts and get dead, or worse, a bad rep. The reason for the credsticks is because that breaks the data trail, full stop, and anyone tracking the funds has to try and snoop for people who suddenly get windfalls of cash, spending like mad, and so on. I suppose it is possible to take a single Ebony credstick, and have a program set up to shift funds from the target account, to the credstick, and then to a different account, and repeat over and over until the account is drained. A fast computer could do it in a few minutes, but this is going to probably set off every alarm in the place unless your decker is really good, even with admin access. A good decker with admin access could perhaps make the individual withdrawals look like legit actions, but a pattern like that over such a short time is going to raise red flags the size of Brackhaven's ego.

Once the funds are in the new account, you'll want to launder it and put it in a third account (or several). That second account, by the way, should be a dummy with completely fake info, all leading back to the commlink you used for the transfers, which should then be either destroyed, or wiped and sold to a pawn shop. Have your decker scrub the logs on where the money from the dummy account went, of course. When dealing with sums like you're talking, unless you're moving them from one corp to another, then assume that, until it has been passed through credsticks and launderers a couple times, at least, and broken up into smaller piles distributed in different systems, that the corp accountants and deckers WILL find the trail. And even if they lose the trail, you keep your mouth shut about the job, don't change your spending habits, maybe leave town, maybe fake your death. Setting yourself up in a new sprawl (maybe in a new country) with a new name and identity goes a long way to keeping people off your case.

Remember, the ones and zeroes are critical, but it is the metahuman element that can easily foil the best laid plans. Same way lottery winners go crazy with the spending, and end up broke within a year or two. Except with corporate hit squads looking to make example of you.

[Angelone]

If you are worried about the ones and zeros being tracked invest in valuable physical stuff. Diamonds, orcichalcum, cruise ships, or whatever and then sell those. You should get better than hot price list because the objects aren't hot.