{"id":46399,"date":"2019-07-10T12:54:52","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T10:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ethereumworldnews.com\/?p=46399"},"modified":"2019-07-10T18:56:10","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T16:56:10","slug":"ban-bitcoin-crowd-go-quiet-as-jpmorgan-owned-ship-seized-with-1-3-billion-worth-of-cocaine-onboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ethereumworldnews.com\/ban-bitcoin-crowd-go-quiet-as-jpmorgan-owned-ship-seized-with-1-3-billion-worth-of-cocaine-onboard\/","title":{"rendered":"Ban Bitcoin Crowd Go Quiet As JPMorgan-Owned ship Seized With $1.3 billion Worth of Cocaine Onboard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A JPMorgan Asset Management-owned ship has just been impounded by the US authorities because it was carrying in its cargo $1.3 billion worth of cocaine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, there have been no calls for the banning of cash, or investment banks for that matter, by the “ban bitcoin” crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ship is operated by the Switzerland-based Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC). The MSC Gayane<\/a> was seized in Philadelphia after 39,525 pounds (nearly 20 tonnes) of the drug was found onboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The containership was built in 2018 and is Liberian flagged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is apparently the largest marine interception every\nconducted by US Customs and Border Protection. Six crew members have been\narrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t the first time a bank has been caught up in the\ndrugs trade, albeit indirectly in JP Morgan\u2019s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drug money laundering and logistics: banks and shipping companies are serial offenders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Readers will remember when global bank HSBC was directly\ninvolved in laundering the money of Latin American drugs cartels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank admitted as much and paid out $1.9 billion to\nsettle with the US authorities, narrowly avoiding \u2013 as banks often do \u2013 being\ncriminally prosecuted for its anti-money laundering violations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that case US prosecutors were forced into action after a\nUS Senate hearing and the subsequent 300-page report found that HSBC\u2019s Mexico\noperation had been facilitating the laundering of cartel money by \u201cdrug\nkingpins and rogue nations\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You won\u2019t be surprised to hear that the same authorities\nhave not called for the shutting down of HSBC or the removal of cash from the\nfinancial system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we\u2019ve been here before with the banks. But so have we\nwith MSC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nJune the very same containership<\/a>, sailing from Colombia, was found upon\narrival at Philadelphia to have $1 billion of cocaine onboard (16.5 tonnes).\nArrests were made but the MSC Gayane was allowed to set sail on the same voyage\nyet again. The ship operator has as yet faced no legal penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blatant serial offending is probably why the US\nauthorities are saying that this time they may not be releasing the vessel in\nwhat would be an unprecedented but justified move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ban bitcoin but laundering drug lords\u2019 cash proceeds is fine!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I was talking to an editor of a City of London trade\npublication the other day at a party and in bombastic fashion he dismissed\ncrypto out of hand, saying it should be banned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His reasoning for a prohibition on crypto was that the only\nthing it was really used for was buying drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I gave him about 10 other current use cases, none of which\ninvolved illegal or illicit activities, but he wouldn\u2019t have it. \u201cBan the crap,\u201d\nhe insisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is of course true that crypto is used in the drug trade\nbut then again so is cash. In fact, cash has much the larger footprint of the\ntwo by some distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, they are close cousins. Here\u2019s an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bitcoin ATMs and drug gangs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Metropolitan police in London complained that London drug gangs were laundering their cash<\/a> through bitcoin ATMs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just down the road from where I live, a local butcher who\ndoes a line in bitcoin ATM\u2019s is, I think, on his fourth machine. I live in an\ninner-city area that is being gentrified \u2013 we have a craft beer bar that has\njust opened up, so you get the drift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is clearly demand, even in the depths of the crypto\nwinter, for the ATMs, although the number of firms in the industry seems to be\nin a state of flux in north London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point here is that the street soldiers of the big\nbusiness organised crime organisations in the first instance rely on cash to\nconduct their business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the same anti-crypto crowd that want prohibition have\nnothing to say about cash apart from maybe get rid of the biggest bank notes.\nHypocrisy, by its very nature, has no shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pomp weighs in<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Anthony Pompliano of Morgan Creek Digital hits the nail on\nthe head in a recent tweet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

JPMorgan owns a ship that was just seized by US Customs because it had $1 billion of drugs on it.

$1,000,000,000 of drugs on a single ship.

But Bitcoin is bad and the criminals should be stopped! \ud83d\ude02<\/p>— Pomp \ud83c\udf2a (@APompliano) July 9, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote>