I believe that it is illegal, yes (I’m not a lawyer). But that is the point. They can “buy” a bunch of cheap useless stuff from him instead of giving him money. That’s the essence of money laundering. Do something that superficially looks legitimate so that you can move a bunch of money that would otherwise be illegal.

For sure. But of course dude tried a coup on live tv and we are having trouble getting the justice system to hold him to account. So getting proof of the NFT scheme that I outlined as a hypothetical is probably going to be harder.

A lot of his value is tied up in assets that aren’t liquid (real estate). Also he is probably not worth as much as he says.

But the main reason is that these “cheap crap” things you mention are probably vehicles for money laundering from foreign actors. The best example are the NFTs he was hawking for awhile. Costs next to nothing to make and foreign states can buy a ton of them to give him money without it being easy to detect. Even if it is detected it is still legal to buy silly NFTs, right? Certainly more so than a foreign government giving a candidate bags of cash for nothing.

Everybody is stuck on defending salt while I’m like….land? Like real estate? Because there are definitely reasons to buy nicer properties than cheaper ones. I’m confused.