Easy money laundering and even make a profit on the exchange rate if you are lucky.
Speaking as the TZ resident money laundering, profiteering expat.
Now if I could just get my hands on something to buy/sell.
Given the residuals on some watches and their ease of transport and selling I’m hearing they are now being used as currency.
If someone gets caught with £15,000 cash then many questions will be asked. If you are wearing a ceramic Daytona who notices?
Also, that recent case are watches being bought and sold, even ones not stolen, to “clean” ill gotten gains? Buy a watch with cash then sell it to a dealer to clean the cash.
Easy money laundering and even make a profit on the exchange rate if you are lucky.
Speaking as the TZ resident money laundering, profiteering expat.
Now if I could just get my hands on something to buy/sell.
So are you saying that anybody wearing a Ceramic Daytona is a thieving money laundering scumbag, precisely why I wear vintage.
I suspect that’s not anything new, I suspect that’s the case for a lot of luxury goods.
Which is why watch dealers like watchfinder now require anti-money laundering documentation if a watch is acquired and then sold in a short period of time
When I worked in Sheffield I used to visit a gold and jewellery dealer quite a bit for a coffee and chat. They told me they had regular trade in construction workers bringing Rolexes from Africa. They’d buy them for cash and wear them on the plane on the way back, posting the papers and box, as a way of effectively exporting money when the currency couldn’t be converted. I assume there was more to lose in trying to change money than bringing back watches that could be sold on for close to rrp.
Ant
"The ambassador used two Iraqi mediators, both Sunnis. They visited the Qatari foreign minister, asking in advance for "gifts": $150,000 in cash and five Rolex watches, "two of the most expensive kind, three of regular quality". It's not clear if these gifts were for the mediators themselves or were to grease the kidnappers' palms as the talks continued"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-44660369
Currency of Terrorists
Not saying that at all just using that as an example of a watch with guaranteed residuals.
Couple of my mates are CID and they are saying that luxury goods including watches, handbags and jewellery are often in the possession of scrotes they arrest.
Their view is that this not new but becoming more common.
Why ‘so many questions’? Since when is it illegal to carry £15K cash? Why would you get ‘caught’ carrying cash - if you were caught carrying a knife then yes I understand. So say it was £10K, £6K where is the line.
anyway - money laundering is not a new game - probably as old as money itself.
Last edited by MartynJC (UK); 12th January 2019 at 17:41.
I guess if you were stopped for some other reason eg suspicion of drugs and you had that much cash on you then the police may want you to explain the source of the cash. However, there would have to be a good reason for the police to stop you. If you walk down the streets waving a large sum of cash around (despite being very foolish) they couldn't just stop you for that as far as im aware
Also there are limits on the amount of foreign currency cash you can travel to and from the country with.
You can carry hundreds of thousands, with good reason. You can travel through country emigration as long as you advise them you are carry the amount - again you’d probably need a good reason, or be able to prove ownership.
In almost every border seizure I have seen, the money is returned upon proof of ownership. It’s no big deal. The dogs are trained to smell bundles of monetary notes too.
It's just a matter of time...
Smarten up guys! They are onto us!!!
I thought money laundering was more likely to be for significant sums and not £15k. Yes a £15k watch can be easily moved about but if you had, say £5M of “dirty money” to launder, then it would take several hundred years to accumulate enough Daytona’s based on current waiting list times.
Buying and selling of high end goods to launder money is age old.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
I have said for a while now that Rolex is a new currency, bit like gold..
Regarding the cleaning cash by selling to a dealer, this would not really work as anyone investigating with half a brain cell would ask the question where the watch that was sold came from in the first place, its not as easy to clean criminal money as people think although the more of it you have the easier it is to pay people to look after it..
Even if you remove the dirty side of things, how many times have we seen people post that their money is better off in a Watch rather than rotting in a bank account gaining sod all, especially if you have been lucky enough to buy one of the hot watches at list.
But remember: watches are not an investment
I'd guess bullion or diamonds would be easier than watches?
Any evidence for that ...?
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