76 sats \ 5 replies \ @nym 24 Apr \ on: Anonymous vs Public Bitcoiners bitcoin_beginners
I’ll just leave this here.
https://protos.com/kidnapped-businessman-kept-in-cage-by-bitcoin-ransom-gang/
I'm looking at buying a property in the UK at some point. I expected to be forced through the usual KYC/AML routine by a solicitor of my choice, and already had concerns about that. My plan was to use one based in another city, big enough that they wouldn't look twice at my affairs or go home and tell their friends about them.
However, I learned that not only do I need to go through my entire financial situation with a solicitor, but also the seller's estate agent. That's because the unelected FATF and the communistic UK decided agents could be a brick in the wall of their totalitarian surveillance society:
Estate Agency businesses do not commonly handle the funds used to buy a property. However, they are a key facilitator in a property sale and come into contact with both parties to the transaction at an early stage and are in an ideal position to identify suspicious activity.
I don't want to live in a big city. This leaves me forced to reveal my hodling to a small-town estate agent with no experience in professional confidentiality and a penchant for gossip.
It's a direct threat to my personal security, counter-productive and highly dangerous legislation, and forcing me to re-consider the whole plan.
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Good question. In fact, that would be considered suspicious:
the way the client comes to the business affects the risk for:
is the client a company, partnership, or trust; are there complex or opaque business ownership structures in place? That is, any client which is a legal person, owned by another legal person. For example, a limited company owned by a beneficial owner indirectly, through another legal entity
The guidance then instructs agents as follows:
identifying all beneficial owners of the customer and taking reasonable measures to verify their identity to satisfy yourself that you know who they are
And then you're back to square one, except with a bigger workload. There seems to be no way to mitigate the threat, although I haven't taken legal advice yet.
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I'll just add this to show how direct the threat can be.
Fortunately, I'm not looking in Northern Ireland. If I were, I'd be looking in a place where the government is led by the political wing of the still-intact IRA.
On 20 December 2004, a total of £26.5 million in cash was stolen from the headquarters of Northern Bank on Donegall Square West in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Having taken family members of two bank officials hostage, an armed gang forced the workers to help them steal used and unused pound sterling banknotes.
Nobody was brought to justice, but it's widely acknowledged to be the work of the IRA. Extortion and racketeering continue to be part of the fabric of life there. They are active in the property industry as in all others. And you're forced, by law, to reveal to them your entire financial situation.
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and then there's this...
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