That's why in some countries ID is required when checking-in. Makes it a bit harder to use for money laundering.

You'd think.

I bought a house in Japan and I had to pay my deposit in cash, approximately US$10,000. Walking around with that much money, I've never been more paranoid in my life.

The only time I've seen checks used it was for a company account. That is in contrast with some countries where checks are still in wide use by regular people for large personal expenses like rent.

About EU, yes, I heard about this. Also India has a similar system.

Shouldn't law abiding citizens have the right to possess and carry cash?

I don't know about illegal immigrants, but anyone in the US on a valid visa can walk into a bank, show a teller their passport, and open an account.

Also, most of us aren't so blessed as to have a landlord (Dorm housing) that will forego a credit background check.

Because I am a citizen of this allegedly free country and I just might want to!

Good point, but how little oversight does this country have of money being sent to peoples accounts from Airbnb etc? In my country (Norway), all transactions > 500 USD, (or multiple transactions from the same sender of lesser amounts), would register with the tax office. The receiver would have to disclose the source of these transactions to the tax office.

If money coming in or out of peoples accounts are governed by self-reporting, people must pay highly inaccurate taxes in the Netherlands.

Oh, and if you are carrying a suitcase full of cash, expect it to be seized under asset forfeiture laws. Apparently carrying large sums of cash is evidence of criminality.

This is something you need to take up with the governments themselves. In rare cases, an expat can get paid in another currency in some countries via a swiss bank account or something, but it is extremely rare, and the laws are really narrow in most places on what you can be paid in.

> then I could at least rent a secure box for my dollars. It will a least protect against inflation.

Many people do that. And it isn't simple to set up, and it definitely isn't legal. If you don't mind taking the risk of going to jail, or rule of law isn't really a thing, then no problem.

The way those work in the rest of the world is basically by giro. You control your bank account, and the only possible transaction is you sending out money to other bank accounts. If I provide you a service I need to get paid, I send you a bill, either in paper form (that you can read with your smartphone) or electronically. You look it over and make the decision to pay or not.

The system is not perfect and fraud still exists (mostly in the form of trying to pass a fake bill as a real one), but fraud is much less prevalent than in the US system.

Plenty of people.

I don't think using cash is even a little suspicious, but even if it were that doesn't justify the authorities stealing that cash.

Carrying cash is entirely legal. There should be at least some indication that the money is connected to a crime before confiscation, and the mere existence of the money is not an indication of a connection to a crime.

That's the theory, in practice see the article.

One thing to know is that owners of private houses with tourist guestrooms will make you huge portions so that their family can eat some yummy CUC food, even if they are leftovers, rather than the state rations. So it's absolutely not bad manners to finish everything!

Indeed, but it also has drawbacks. You need to find someone with capability to use that much cash without suspicion.

Also, I think most of the money laundering is made across borders, from people willing to enjoy their wealth in a country different than the one they earned it. Think money earned to US to be used in Mexico, or nationals of a heavy currency export regulated country (rmb, ruble). Customs are very efficient at looking for cash moving through these borders.

I must point out I know a couple people who did that in Hungary in the last ten years, just because it seemed absolutely insane to me (cheques don't exist here, either..).

I am reasonably sure this isn't that common though, and the government still tracks the transaction :)

This isn't quite what you meant, but 20-ish years ago there was some crowd-tracking of Euro-bills.

The Euro was pretty new and people were excited about their banknotes showing up in other countries. Some people created a website where you could enter the serial number of your bills. Each serial number would have a tracking page in which places it showed up. It felt kinda cool to find a bill in your wallet that had visited a few other countries.

That's a very USA-centric comment. Checks are virtually unheard of in Europe and no one would pay so much money in cash. You would do a wire transfer or a card payment for that.

Payments in cash to a professional from a French citizen have been capped at 1000€ in France for years with virtually no impact. I have never seen or heard of someone attempting to use that much cash.

In Vancouver there's a well oiled mechanism of bringing duffle bags of cash into casinos for cleansing, in plain sight and with the knowledge of law enforcement. There was a small scandal recently where police got involved for some reason, but nothing will come of it. Truth is stranger than fiction.

I came to the conclusion that in the US, if you have everything that people usually have (SSN, bank account, credit card, residential address, phone number, car, drivers license), you will be treated well. Miss just one on list, and people will assume that something is wrong with you, and it probably triggers a few warning signs (e.g. in fraud detection systems).

It may be coming from the fact that homeless and criminal elements usually miss a few on the list, so it was considered an easy signal for such pre-filtering, however, moving from a different country has the same signals, triggering multiple false alarms.

When cash is dispensed from an ATM, even at small sums, are the serial numbers associated with the account it was deducted from? Seems possible from a technical perspective.