@Bad Alias
I got that data from reddit.
Actually none of them would have problems if they were smart. Harry could walk the ways to some offshore banking facility and call it good. Wealthy people do it all the time. But it would take time and require a lot of legal expertise. And penniless detectives who start moving large dollar amounts paying medical bills are going to draw attention. While the IRS may not care where it came from the FBI might ask here it came from and use forfeiture laws to take it away.
Yeah, IRS audits and civil asset forfeitures are his biggest concerns. (He may have to worry about Illinois and Chicago taxing authorities; I have no experience there and haven't googled it). He could launder the money fairly easily. I won't go into details unless anyone is interested. If I was a wizard, and the government seized my assets, I'd probably curse them (judges, agents, etc.) with something horrible and obviously done by magic. Then I'd offer to counter the curse for the amount seized. As we've seen in
Jury Duty, some judges know the supernatural is real. Perhaps summon a supernatural being as a witness in court.
none of the take from the bank was going on the books, Anna was going to give them a routing to have them fenced "a little at a time" which would have reduced the overall valuation, back after SG's first release there was a fairly exhaustive discussion on Harry's take. If I remember correctly it was generally concluded to be between 5-10 million. As far as Harry being able to use it, I'm sure some, like the Svartelves, would take it as currency with no problem, great for Harry's tools for his gadgets.
I remember a couple of those threads. One of my disagreements with many estimates is that they start off with retail instead of wholesale prices. On the point about the Svartelves, they probably aren't the best place to launder diamonds.
They ... had a reputation for rigid adherence ... to the law or at least to the letters it consisted of.
Chapter 36,
Ghost StoryIf you recall from
Bombshells, they had done everything exactly to code and filed all there plans for their headquarters in Chicago. It's likely they keep meticulous records that could get Harry into trouble. Other supernatural markets might be better.
Hm, I know that ignoring uncomfortable things is something humans are good at and magic/monsters isn't the go-to answer for people, but if you saw say, the Incredible Hulk getting shot in a parking lot, that would cause more attention than the local gang bangers shooting each other.
What I'm trying to say is that sometimes something so big happens that people cannot ignore it or explain it away. And while all the supernatural community tries to keep things on the DL, no one can account for everything, stuff happens, and I think the Peace Talks is when stuff happens.
If I told you I saw the Incredible Hulk getting shot in a parking lot, what would you and the authorities say? I agree that at a certain point, most people would believe. I'm just not sure what that point is, and I don't think we've seen it on page yet. I don't know enough specifics for it to be a good analogy, but on October 13, 1917, a bunch of people saw the sun dance in the sky at Fatima, Portugal. There were 30 to 40K people there. I'm not sure how many reported not seeing anything vs how many reported something miraculous. The first point in the wikipedia article section "Criticism" on the event basically says "we know a miracle didn't happen because we know miracles don't happen, it was probably something else."
We don't even have to look at miraculous events for this. A great many people refuse to believe men have landed on the moon. Some believe the earth is flat. Many don't believe in the efficacy of vaccines. I'm not trying to argue for or against any of those positions. My point is that, whichever side you take on any of those issues, you probably believe the people on the other side are either blithering idiots or are willing to deny obvious facts when faced with them.
