So imagine residing in Oregon or Washington and being in the lucrative marijuana business, but not being able to open accounts because banks are afraid of that other kind of green. What's a legal weed peddler to do? Drop the cash on an expensive bong, sell it, then give the bank clean money, apparently.
A BuzzFeed longread explored the phenomenon, chronicling this new method of money laundering:
More than simply works of art, status-affirming trophies, or ways to get high, custom glass pipes have become ways for marijuana entrepreneurs shut out of legitimate financial institutions to invest their otherwise untouchable cash.
Most transactions involving bongs and rigs, which look like bongs but are used for vaporizing concentrates, happen off the books, among friends, at trade shows, or between connoisseurs who meet online. Then, anyone who paid five figures for a pipe using drug money, including dealers in states where weed is very illegal and businessmen in states with medical or recreational cannabis laws, can resell the same pipe with all of the appropriate receipts, paperwork, and taxes. Presto, change-o: Now the money is clean.
You can use [glass] to launder money, said one California businessman who deals in marijuana concentrates, showing BuzzFeed News his collection. You go to a gallery, see something for thirty thousand bucks, make a deal, and then sell it off and just make a stipulation that whoever pays you pays with a check. I could trade half of these pipes within a day or two, if I wanted to.
Indirectly cleaning drug money is the American way, no?
[via BuzzFeed]
