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Sniffing Out Billions In US Currency Smuggled Across the Border To Mexico
An anonymous reader writes "Criminals smuggle an estimated $30 billion in U.S. currency into Mexico each year from the United States, most of it laundered drug money. But researchers say help is on the way for border guards in the form of a portable device that identifies specific vapors given off by U.S. paper money. "We're developing a device that mimics the function of trained dogs 'sniffing' out concealed money, but without the drawbacks, such as expensive training, sophisticated operators, down time and communication limitations," says Suiqiong Li, Ph.D., a member of the research team behind the technology. When developing the device, the researchers first had to figure out which gases money emits and how fast that happens. It turned out that the gases are a set of trace chemicals, including aldehydes, furans and organic acids." What do bitcoins smell like?
Problem here is they are not looking for anything that is evidence of a crime. It is legal to carry money over the border up to a certain amount so, the smell of money doesn't actually indicate any crime, and isn't evidence of any crime.
Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to justify expenditures on cool new technology which will be quickly mothballed after its found to be useless or ruled by the courts to not be justification for extra scrutiny.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The result of the puritanical and hypocritical war on drugs has been countless lives lost, Billions and Billions spent on fruitless efforts and a strengthening of criminal gangs and terrorist groups which aren't shy about using thuggery and corrupting law enforcement and the government in order to make money. People suffer and as long as nobody is committing fraud in what they are selling, then people should be able to buy whatever rat poison they want and do with it what they want. People have a right to their own bodies. When drug use gets out of hand then civil commitment and medical care are what is needed, not police, courts and jails.
There is not a lot of problems associated with drug money going to the Mexico.
30 billion a year going into the hands of violent drug cartels isn't a problem? I disagree.
On the other hand, waves of unskilled, poor, desperate people and who can't legally work here is a recipe for social problems that will last generations.
Are you American Indian? If not, from which wave of poor desperate immigrants did your family arrive?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
But, I don't think this will happen as a billions of dollars of industry, on both sides of the law, has been built. You have the drug cartels used to the market price and then you have the DEA, etc. who are used to the funding provided by the USG. You legalize the drugs and *POOF* goes the market value of the drugs and the funding to the DEA and all the companies that are fed off via contracts. The majority of the money is now going to the local and state governments in the form of taxes like with cigarettes and alcohol.
Why do you think that unskilled labor is a net loss? America was largely built on the cheap labor of immigrants who eventually became part of the culture.
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