What happens with seized money? Daniel the drug dealer was caught with 20.000€ of illegaly earned money while crossing the border into Switzerland. The money was covered in traces of all kinds of drugs, so the court did not believe any of his stories about where he got the money from (also, cash in excess of 10.000€ must be declared when crossing the border, as a measure against tax evasion). The court found him guilty of drug dealing, attempted money laundering and similar crimes and charged him with a fine of 1000Fr, plus court fees. But what happens with the seized money? I can think of several options: It is returned to Daniel, deduced by the fine. (Unlikely, because in this case, the crime would have been worth it, as the fine is significantly lower than the cash earned) The money is destroyed by the court (Destroying money is illegal in itself, though) The money becomes property of the state (Sounds a bit weird, as this would make the state benefit from a crime)
The money is forfeited to the state This would normally be the case even if Daniel is acquitted. The proceeds of crime may be seized using forfeiture rules which require Daniel to prove that the suspect money is legitimate.
Laundering physical money Let's say a career criminal committed a couple crimes and is now in possession of a large heap of money in form of coins and paper currency. They want to use that money to buy themselves a nice house. But showing up with a huge bag of money at a bank or real estate agency would look very suspicious. It is very likely that they will get reported and then investigated by law enforcement. What do they do? They need some explanation where that money comes from. A good way to turn that dirty money into apparently clean money is by running a legitimate cash-based business. The criminal then goes to the bank each week and deposits a chunk of their ill-gotten cash claiming it's income from their business. Common choices are restaurants, casinos or the name-giver laundromats which were famously used by crime boss Al Capone to launder his illegal income. But they can use any business for this purpose which takes payment in cash and doesn't leave easy to analyze evidence how much business they really performed. Now the criminal has all that ill-gotten money on a regular bank account and can use it to buy what they want without raising any further suspicion. Laundering electronic money Another category of money laundering which got very relevant in the age of online banking is to launder illegally obtained money which can be found on bank accounts. For example by hacking online banking accounts or running scams. If the criminal would just send that money to their personal account, then the investigators would just need to subpoena their bank and their real identity would be revealed. So they need some way to move that money which is hard to trace. Common methods are: Transfering money to accounts in foreign countries in order to tie up investigators with the bureaucracy of international investigations. Transferring money in ways which are hard to trace, like cryptocurrency, gift cards, private money transfer services or private people they recruited to forward money through their personal accounts. Buying, transfering and selling virtual assets in online games. Buying physical items from online stores using false identities and selling them again under their real identity. Fortunately none of these methods of money laundering are completely untraceable. They make the work of law enforcement more difficult, but not completely impossible. The criminals usually hope to frustrate law enforcement to the point that they give up and prioritize "larger fish".
I think you would have difficulty distorting the situation - Pokemon Go is not magic that defies existing laws, and this would be no different to a mall issuing a trespass notice (which is effectively how they would kick you out) for any other reason. I would question the ability of a store to "Arrest" you - that is a job for the police - After they trespass you (ie by giving you notice to leave), if you come back again then they can call the police to arrest you - but its not as clear-cut as someone seeing you playing a game and arresting you. I don't think Pokemon players are a "protected class" of people, so finding a valid cause of action might be tricky. About the best you could do would be to talk with your wallet (ie shop elsewhere with your friends), but for my money that would make me more likely to go to that mall !
Exactly the same thing that stops the same rogue lawyer from putting on a mask and robbing a bank. One is the crime of fraud and the other the crime of armed robbery but they are both crimes. People commit crimes all the time; that is why nearly 1 million people in the U.S. are in jail right now - some of them may even be in there for crimes they actually committed! Were your lawyer to commit this crime he may get caught or he may not; if he does he's going away for a long time and can never work as a lawyer again. So it's simply a matter of risk assessment; oh, and ethics
Under German law, if you are sentenced to a fine because you committed a crime, that fine is measured in Tagessätze (day fine). One day worth of fines is the 30th part of your monthly income, adjusted according to the criminal's personal and economic situation. Basis for that is Criminal Code sec 40 (§ 40 StGB). There is, however, no corresponding principle for prison sentences. The reasoning behind that is, that a wealthy person would hardly be able to &quot;improve&quot; their time in prison compared to a less wealthy one. In fact, they would &quot;lose more money&quot; in the meantime.
I reported this to my bank as soon as I found out, and Chase said that the money would be reimbursed once they completed their investigation (within 10 business days). Chase was likely indicating that the money will be reimbursed within 10 business days of completing their investigation; not 10 business days from the date you told the that someone forged checks on your account. This would make sense when you think about it, as they need to make sure that you were not complicit in the crime (you would be surprised how many people have had someone cash multiple checks from their account only to split the money with them and file a claim for fraudulent transfer/forgery). Further, checks are a negotiable instrument, unlike a credit/debit card, where specific protections exist pursuant to its terms and conditions of use. You have a duty to keep a negotiable instrument safe, and while most banks will reimburse you if it can be established that you had no involvement and you were not grossly negligent in the keeping of the instruments, it is a different animal in and of itself. It has now been 13 business days, and I have checked on the status twice and was told both times that there had been no status update, and they were unable to provide an updated ETA. Unless your bank indicated in the disclosures of the checking account application and acceptance documentation that in the event of a stolen check you will be reimbursed in X amount of days, they have the absolute right to complete their investigation before reimbursing any funds to your account. It's a fairly large amount of money, and I need to get it back as soon as possible. I'm trying to figure out if I have legal footing here. Does the law protect me from this type of fraud? And if so, does it require the bank to respond within any particular timeframe? Federal banking regulations provide broad protections to consumers when it comes to fraud involving credit/debit cards, as these are easily stolen from all sorts of means. That said, checks do not carry the same protections, although oftentimes some. National banks may be required to reimburse customers for forged checks. However, based on individual circumstances, the bank can investigate to determine if the customer is entitled to a reimbursement. There is not duty to reimburse until the investigation is complete. This is why I think you've potentially misconstrued what they said about how long it would take. They cannot promise a time certain when they don't know how long the investigation will take. Whether the bank is liable for the customer's loss depends on the specific circumstances of the case. Generally, a bank is liable for accepting a check that has been forged, altered, or improperly endorsed. However, if the bank can prove two things — that it accepted the check in good faith and exercised ordinary care and diligence in handling the transaction — it may not be liable. If your actions — the way the check or checkbook was handled, issued, completed, or made payable — contributed to the making of the forgery, you may be at least partially liable. Generally, the bank will require you to complete an affidavit. It may also request that you file a police report. ** Addition: I forgot to mention that if the checks were not "cashed" (i.e. filled out to cash or cashed in person), but rather were presented to a 3rd party for payment in receipt of goods or services, you are also going to need to contact those individuals or businesses (their name is on the check) and alert them to the fraud, and allow them to contact their banks, lest you will be assessed fees by them for insufficient funds if your bank later takes the money back as a result of the investigation. Also, in the event the checks were recreated rather than stolen, or if you don't know exactly how many were stolen, you are going to need to close your account while you wait for the investigation to bear fruit (hopefully), and open a new account, as you now have a duty to account for any and all checks stolen at that event (so, if you know a book is out there and 10 checks have cleared you know there are 15 remaining that the bank is not going to cover if you don't take steps to protect yourself). One would think they've asked you this and have already done something to prevent further checks from coming in, but if not, you need to get on it. Also, you may want to hire your own investigator if you have the funds to do so. While stolen cards are often strangers, stolen checks (unless it's one washed check) is nearly always someone you know.
It might possibly be illegal. For criminal law, usually you need to obey the laws of three countries: The country you are a national of (by personality principle) The country from where you make the sale (by territoriality principle) The country that hosts the attacked interest (by territoriality principle) Then it depends on the jurisdiction (and other factors) whether the sale is legal or not. I'll use the example of my country, Czech Republic. There is a crime called "Unauthorized access to a computer system or data storage device". For example, you commit this crime by exploiting a vulnerability in a web application and copying the web owner's data on your computer. It is also codified that whoever wilfully facilitates the committing of a crime by providing the criminal with resources (such as the exploit) is considered to have also committed the crime. For this to apply, you must have known or expected that the exploit will be used to commit a crime. The courts would decide this.
The note you have quoted does not accurately summarise the decision, which is available on BAILII. What happened was: IOC agreed to sell 5,000 tons of salt to Mumtazzudin. Atlas paid IOC for the salt on behalf of Mumtazzudin. Because Atlas paid, Atlas received the bills of lading. Thus, the salt was pledged to Atlas to secure the money owed by Mumtazzudin. Atlas endorsed the bills of lading over to Chabbra for value. In other words, Atlas sold Chabbra the right to be repaid by Mumtazzudin, and to take delivery of the salt as security for the debt. Mumtazzudin persuaded the shipowner to hand over the salt without presenting the bill of lading. Chabbra sued the shipowner for conversion (destroying the value of its security). What does “refused to redeem the pledge when the bills of lading were tendered to them by Chabbra” mean? Chabbra, as the pledgee of the bills of lading, was entitled to possession of the salt, until Mumtazzudin “redeemed the pledge” by paying Chabbra the amount originally advanced by Atlas. But Mumtazzudin managed to get the salt without the bills of lading, so it refused to pay Chabbra. Why would a savvy seller even transact with buyers who couldn’t pay for the transaction upfront? The alternative may be that the sale is not made at all. However, that is not what happened in this case – the seller got paid.