> <i>...heaved seven heavy suitcases onto the conveyor belt...</i><p>> <i>...and a few million more dollars worth of cash in eight suitcases...</i><p>> <i>...In October 2020, two other women weren’t so lucky. They were questioned at a Heathrow departure gate by officers of the Border Force, the agency in charge of U.K. customs and immigration. One of the women told officers she checked five suitcases to Dubai because she wasn’t sure what to wear...</i><p>I'm utterly baffled at why a money smuggling operation would be done with a conspicuous 5 to 8 suitcases at a time, rather than just 1 or 2.<p>They were offered "around $3,750" to fly suitcases containing around $500,000 each. Which is not a high percentage even for just a single suitcase.<p>So even besides the extra risk of attracting attention from so many suitcases, you'd think they'd want to spread them out more just for risk reduction generally -- in case the checked luggage is lost, in case a courier decides to abscond with the cash themselves, etc.
> Most airports worldwide, including in the U.S., don’t scan passenger luggage for cash, a costly undertaking in equipment and personnel.<p>This is the only shocker for me. Can anyone elaborate? I've always assumed x-ray scanners can't figure out the amount of cash, but shouldn't they be able to detect giant stacks of cash?
> Most airports worldwide, including in the U.S., don’t scan passenger luggage for cash, a costly undertaking in equipment and personnel.<p>I think this is false. Anytime I've flown with cash in my checked in luggage, it was always stolen and it was obvious someone went through my suitcase. Then I stopped doing that obviously. (happened in U.S. and Indonesia)
If someone really wanted to slow illicit businesses, they would look at ones of the US's biggest exports: shell corporations. Delaware and South Dakota churn them out legally by the hundreds of thousands. This is how all that laundering, tax evasion, and worse is performed.<p>Tie then all to owners and halt much of this.