Can The Stamp Market Be Used For Real Hard Criminal Actions?

Real estate is used all the time to launder money, in fact it's one of the most common way of doing so because transactions can reach the millions of dollars or pounds or francs without too many eyebrows being raised (London, Munich, NYC, LA, etc). Imagine: overseas buyer sitting on $5m in ill-gotten cash, creates Nevis corporation which buys NYC condo with money he wired in. A few months later, sells condo, corporation now has clean cash in a bank of his choice. There are hundreds of empty condos in Miami, bought by Russians (and others) that will never spend a single night there; they're as much parking cash somewhere safe, as they are washing it. Anti-laundering "know your client" procedures don't mean anything if the references you have to rely on are also corrupt.

Considering the seller keeps referring to very expensive stamps that are not in the picture, I would call the seller a fraud at least.

Looking at GB, Eire, NL, there are, primarily, basic stamps. The higher face values of sets tend to be absent. There is a conspicuous absence of anything interesting there. (Except, of course, that unmounted mint 1935 Prussian Blue Silver Jubilee top right on the ninth page.)

I see a canceled Silver Jubilee at the top right on the ninth page. Where is the unmounted mint item?

I think that's a "whoosh", RR.

This $1.4M collection shown cannot be used to launder a significant amount of money. The only way something can be used to launder money is if you can turn around and sell it after buying it with the dirty money.

I assume that criminals are willing to lose XX percentage during a laundering transaction. This is the same as fencing stolen items, the criminal is willing to sell it for less than it is worth in order to turn something illegally gained into cash. Given the value of the collection shown in this listing less than a hundred dollars; there is no way that anyone would use $1.4M in illegally gained money and try to then resell it for a hundred (or even a few thousand) dollars.

Money laundering occurs largely in transactions without paper trails. Yes, money can be laundered in transactions which do have paper (like real estate) but those tend to be very complex deals with multi-layered shell companies involved. Money laundering is not only about 'cleaning' the ill-gotten money of a single transaction; it is also about dodging taxes and staying far, far below the radar of all law enforcement.

Occam razor; this is just like the thousands of other ebay listings where the seller is being totally unrealistic (to put it kindly).
Don

Edit: ebay IS being used to launder money but it is being used to fence stolen items or items "stolen-to-order". For example, the stories we are seeing where criminals are going into stores and walking out with carts full of merch here in the US are being fenced on ebay.
But no one is trying to fence a $1.4M stamp collection, I think every here agrees that what has been shown in the listing is worth nothing even close to four figures (never mind seven figures).

@Rob Roy




You are being too serious again.

NSK, my friend, give me a break.
I know that philately lingo is filled with Intricate and sophisticated nuances and terms, so I do tend to sound naive (GeoffHa, I couldn't find "whoosh" in our philatelic glossary).
Furthermore, English expressions and innuendos often go above my head, so whenever I see someone willing to give an arm and a leg for a deal, I don't know if he's willing to pay a lot, or if we're talking about organ trafficking.

So that's where serious philatelists come from, retired hookers.
BTW, is Captain Hook a Hooker by definition?