MovieChat Forums > A Simple Plan (1999) Discussion > Would it technically be possible to get ...

Would it technically be possible to get away with it today? *spoilers*


I mean, if you are a plain guy making let's say 30 000 - 60 000 $ a year, how could you possibly launder more than a million bucks? Would it be possible just to walk into a bank on some Caribbean island or Switzerland with a suitcase and deposit the money? Buying expensive stuff with cash would seem very dubious in our current electronic world.
The scenario in the film sounds corruptly lucrative, but very difficult unless you're not a mobster.

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Personally, I would hide the cash in my home and ONLY participate in cash transactions, with no massive obvious purchases. Just use it to continue to live modest and comfortable, with maybe a few more guitars...

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Well today they'd have the capability of logging a lot more than just the serial numbers of ALL the bills.

The bills WOULD be traceable; best bet would be to launder it all at once somehow. Sell it abroad at substantial loss, maybe.

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The bills WOULD be traceable; best bet would be to launder it all at once somehow. Sell it abroad at substantial loss, maybe.


Over a period of time, go to a casino and slip that $100 bill in a slot or other machine. Play one game, cash out and get a ticket that you then feed to one of the casinos ATM-like devices and get your $99 left over. Rinse and repeat for $1,000 worth, then go to another casino, rinse and repeat.

Of course you'd have to take time off or do it after work (if possible - give no appearance of a change in lifestyle - or - move FAR away). Still, hard to do for $1+ million, especially if you have idiot partners who would spend/piss it away right off the bat, draw attention, and rat you out.

In the end, just walk away from all that trouble - leave it to some other sucker.

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You'd have to do the Whitey Bulger...the Boston mobster was on the run for over a decade and probably would still be,had his wife not had so much compassion for abused animals.She put them on the radar with her support of animals in So.Cal. They were living a quite simple life with over 800k in the walls of their rented apt.
That's what you'd have to do-don't change a thing in your life and coast...act like your living pay check to pay check.

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But that's what makes the whole movie so frustrating and fascinating at once

It should be a simple matter, but when you get involved with dimbulbs like Hank & Jacob, you're pretty much screwed

I just find it so delightfully infuriating & fascinatingly frustrating that Lou's prepared to risk everything over his truck, while Jacob insists he wants the run-down farm when he, like all of them, could almost literally have the whole world.

BTW, having finished the novel, I fully agree with the novelist's choice to make Hank less evil and more sympathetic. It makes it easier for the audience to want him to succeed, and suffer along with him when his dunderhead partners mess things up

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Agree..guess that's why it's title is"A Simple Plan"

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Laundering a small amount like $4million into about $2.5million clean, is easy.
You create, if open a business. A restaurant or a widget store, or a plumber service
Pass the cash through the business as "sales".
You need to cover your bases. Order food, etc. Pay all your fees, taxes,
It takes time, but you'll whind up with clean taxed/taxable money.

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