Is it illegal to give my friend money for drugs? I live in Texas and my friend wants me to give them Bitcoin in order for them to buy drugs online. I will not ever see these drugs or partake in them, I would simply just give the money to my friend so that they can buy drugs online. Will I get in any trouble for doing this?
Yes. Helping someone to commit a criminal offense is generally a crime identical to the offense itself. Under Texas Penal Code section 7.02: A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if ... he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense.
I can’t speak for Indonesia but if you did this in Australia you would be a criminal. You either committed fraud or are an accessory to fraud. You would probably be considered an accessory at and after the fact which means you are subject to the same maximum penalty as if you had committed the fraud yourself - 10 years in jail. In addition, you are liable to repay the money taken, jointly and severally with your ‘friend’. However, if they can only find you, you cannot recover from your ‘friend’ as you were engaged in a joint criminal enterprise. Scams such as you describe are distressingly common and many people fall for them. As such, assuming the court accepted your story (because you might actually be the fraudster and have just made it up) you would be unlikely to get close to the full sentence and if you caught the judge on a good day, might even escape jail. If you are lucky, the jury might acquit, even though, on the facts, they shouldn’t - juries do what juries do. If you’re really lucky the police might decide not to prosecute.
Suppose you could. Now the proceeds of the sale belong to the shell company. What good does that do you? If you want to use the money to buy stuff for yourself, the shell company has to pay it back to you as a dividend or salary or something, and that payment will be taxable income to you personally. This might even come out worse for you: if you had held the bitcoins for more than a year, and sold them yourself, you could benefit from the lower long-term capital gains tax rate. But if you collect the funds as salary or dividend, you pay the higher ordinary income tax rate.
It doesn't even have to be pennies. Any cash denomination is open to discretion. The Federal Reserve tells us "There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. "
If I can summarise: Jane gave money to Joe on the understanding that he would give it to Bob, Joe kept the money. This is matter between Jane and Joe, Bob is not involved. Edit The OP has stated that Joe did give the money to Bob. In that case, Joe was acting as Jane's agent and he discharged his agency. This is a matter between Jane and Bob, Joe is involved only so far as he was a witness to what happened.
There is commonly a law like RCW 69.50.309 which says that A person to whom or for whose use any controlled substance has been prescribed, sold, or dispensed by a practitioner, and the owner of any animal for which such controlled substance has been prescribed, sold, or dispensed may lawfully possess it only in the container in which it was delivered to him or her by the person selling or dispensing the same. A controlled substance is "a drug, substance, or immediate precursor included in Schedules I through V as set forth in federal or state laws, or federal or commission rules". Schedule V includes some opiates with low potential for abuse and dependency. It does not include prescription antibiotics, and does not include Ibuprofen and other OTC NSAIDs. The cop may be right about keeping your narcotics in the original container, but wrong about anything less. I can't presently locate the Oklahoma analog of this law. After diligent searching, I even suspect that Oklahoma does not have such an "original container" law. It would count as a "counterfeit substance" if it is a controlled substance and is in a container with labeling that is not that of the original distributor, but if the contain is completely blank, it is not legally a "counterfeit substance". And again, that only applies to controlled substances.
The physical cash in the bank is not your property, at least not in US law (according to Scalia). It becomes your property when the withdrawal is performed by some means specified in your contract. A deposit gives you a contractual right to demand money from the bank. Bank robbery is a crime. Having money deposited with the bank doesn't change that. The only possible chance a robber has at trial is jury nullification. I haven't found records for that in Lebanon, but it does have jury trials. Impartial review classifies Lebanon's justice system as somewhat corrupt, but generally compliant with the basic principles. So it might be possible to get away with it at trial, but a very long shot.
That the cop claims to be your friend is not more illegal than a salesman claiming that he has "the best offer" for you because he likes you (in fact didn't you see any film about the good cop/bad cop routine?) The term you are looking for is Entrapment. The (very simplified) basic idea is that police officers can promote the comission of a crime to catch criminals but cannot "trap" innocent people into it; the difference being that their persuassion should not turn otherwise innocent people into criminals. An extreme example would be if the cop threatens the target into commiting a crime. For the more usual situation when a cop promotes a crime to catch the criminal, I saw it explained (just for illustration purposes, it is not that you are safe when the cop insists a third time) as it follows: Legal: Cop) Oh boy! The place where I work is full of cash and they don't even have alarms or store it in a safe box. If someone helps me, we could go this night and take all of it. Are you interested? Target) I don't know. Cop) Trust me, it will be easy, nobody is there at night and it will be just a couple of hours. Target) Ok, count me in. Illegal Cop) Oh boy! The place where I work is full of cash and they don't even have alarms or store it in a safe box. If someone helps me, we could go this night and take all of it. Are you interested? Target) I am not a thief. Cop) Come on, it will be easy, the place is insured and nobody will be hurt. Target) Not interested. Cop) We can get 5000 US$ each one, just for a night of work. Didn't you told me that you had troubles with your bank? You could solve those overnight! Target) Maybe you are right, but I have no experience with these things... Cop) Do not worry, I will tell you what you need to do. Target) Ok, count me in. Note that it is not only "the cop insisted a lot". For the drug dealer example, if the cop insisted a lot but, when agreed, the boy produced the drug from his pocket, already packaged for sale, it would not be entrapment. OTOH, if the guy had told "I do not know where to buy drugs" and the cop had told him "go talk with X so he sells you the drug", then it could be considered entrampment. In any case, this is generic information only, entrapment is difficult to prove and will depend on the views of the judge/jury so, no matter how enticing that criminal offer is, just don't do it.