Illicit gain

“ To attempt a formula embracing the variety of conduct whereby persons may responsibly contribute in furthering a transaction forbidden by an Act of Congress, to wit, to send illicit goods across state lines, would be mischievous futility. ”

“ On turning up his record in the books, one of the devils explained that the prisoner had been arrested for unlicensed trading; whereupon the Judge became very angry, and said, “Those who drive an illicit trade in salt, not only defraud the State of its proper revenue, but also prey upon the livelihood of the people. Those, however, whom the greedy officials and corrupt traders of to-day denounce as unlicensed traders, are among the most virtuous of mankind—needy unfortunates who struggle to save a few cash in the purchase of their pint of salt. ”

“ Mustn't it be awful to live in such a state of risk and uncertainty, never knowing when you're going to be found out, for, of course, there are plenty of detectives on the watch for illicit buying all the time? ”

“ Finally, the sad procession of police, prisoners, and utensils—the last being placed in a cart with the manufactured spirits—wends its way down the mountain-side to the nearest barracks. Then, at the next petty sessions of the district, all those who were found engaged, together with the tenant on whose holding the distillation was being carried on, are heavily fined, with the option of a severe term of imprisonment.
But what has conduced more than anything else to the diminution of illicit distillation has been successive bad harvests, rack-renting, and absentee landlords. ”

“ You all know that the growth of the drug habit caused serious alarm in the early days of the war, and that even the amendment to the Defence of the Realm Act, forbidding the unauthorised sale and possession of cocaine and other poisons, did little to diminish the illicit traffic. Such contrabrand dealing is immensely lucrative, and prices rise in direct ratio with the danger. ”

“ Illicit drugs:
transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin and minor transit point for Latin American cocaine to Western Europe; producer of synthetic drugs for local and regional markets; susceptible to money laundering related to drug trafficking, organized crime ”

“ But that species of contraband which is carried on to the largest extent, and is most ruinous to those engaged in it, is the distillation of ardent spirits; at one and the same time, the easiest effected, and the hardest to work at of all the illicit manufactures, as the article is difficult to dispose of when made, for publicans hesitate before they embark in a trade, from the trammels of which they can never be free. The makers and vendors frequently turn round upon their heel, and inform against the purchasers ”

“ Commissioner.—"Then you have been defrauding the public for many years, and injuring the revenue by your illicit practices: the poor have an equal right to be supplied with as genuine an article as the rich."
He was convicted in the penalty of 50l.
The King against Brady.—The defendant, Mr. Alexander Brady, grocer, and dealer in tea and coffee, was charged with having, on the 28th of February last, in his possession eighteen pounds of sham-coffee, and selling the same for genuine coffee. ”

“ We are pursuing the assets of those involved in a wide range of crime including drug dealing, people trafficking, fraud, extortion, smuggling, control of prostitution, counterfeiting, benefit fraud, tax evasion and environmental crimes such as illegal dumping of waste and illegal fishing. ”

“ I have indeed some reason to suspect that one poor fellow bought a single bottle of rum with some of the clothes upon his back; and in my answer I requested of his excellency, that, if such an attempt at illicit trade should be repeated, he would without scruple order the offender to be taken into custody. And thus ended our altercation, both by conference and writing, with the viceroy of Rio de Janeiro. ”

“ But the Government does contend that one who with knowledge of a conspiracy to distill illicit spirits sells materials to a conspirator knowing that they will be used in the distilling, is himself guilty of the conspiracy. ”

“ For this illicit commerce the laws themselves, however, are not so much to be blamed as the influence of long-prevailing and widely-taught attitudes and conceptions which caused scientific and other forces to fail to recognize and meet the need for clinical handling of the situation, and for study and investigation of the condition. ”

“ That the possession of said illicit liquors is hereby prohibited and declared unlawful, and any obligation, note of indebtedness, contracted in their sale or transportation is declared to be absolutely null and void, nor shall any action or suit for the recovery of the same be entertained in any court in this state. ”

“ If these things must be done to gratify the inordinate greed of some men, let it be made obligatory on them that the packages containing spurious products so proclaim them, under penalty of confiscation when detected, and the fraud further punishable by heavy penalty. No man has any right to sell a compound of honey and glucose as pure honey, nor has he any right, either moral or legal, to place a compound of butter and lard, still further “doctored” with drugs, upon the market as pure butter. ”

“ The same evening the grocer or grocers, druggist or druggists, come and say, `It was I who sold the arsenic to the gentleman;' and rather than not recognize the guilty purchaser, they will recognize twenty. Then the foolish criminal is taken, imprisoned, interrogated, confronted, confounded, condemned, and cut off by hemp or steel; or if she be a woman of any consideration, they lock her up for life. ”

“ I have lived to be wiser, and to see vulgarity, coarseness, meanness, knavery, nay, even convicted guilt, the favored guests of royal saloons. The moral indictments against crime have to the full as many flaws as the legal ones; and we see, in every society, men, and women too, as notoriously criminal as though they wore the red-and-yellow livery of the galleys. Physicians tell us that every drug whose sanitary properties are acknowledged in medicine, contains some ingredients of a noxious or poisonous nature. May not something similar exist in the moral world? ”

“ Any person who shall steal a mule, or other animal of draught or burden, or shall enter a tent or dwelling, and steal therefrom gold-dust, money, provisions, goods, or other articles, amounting in value to one hundred dollars or over, shall, on conviction thereof, be considered guilty of felony, and suffer death by hanging. ”

“ Those, however, who in their regrettable folly go so far as not only to sell moneys thus made but even despise the precepts of the natural law, pass the bounds of their art and violate the laws by deliberately coining or casting or having others coin or cast counterfeit money from alchemic gold or silver, we proclaim as coming under this animadversion, and their goods shall be confiscate, and they shall be considered as criminals. ”

“ Strictly speaking, money laundering is the age-old process of disguising the illegal origin and criminal nature of funds (obtained in sanctions-busting arms sales, smuggling, trafficking in humans, organized crime, drug trafficking, prostitution rings, embezzlement, insider trading, bribery, and computer fraud) by moving them untraceably and investing them in legitimate businesses, securities, or bank deposits. ”

“ This crime is owing to the laws themselves; for the higher the duties, the greater is the advantage, and consequently, the temptation; which temptation is increased by the facility of perpetration, when the circumference that is guarded is of great extent, and the merchandise prohibited is small in bulk. The seizure and loss of the goods attempted to be smuggled, together with those that are found along with them, is just; but it would be better to lessen the duty, because men risk only in proportion to the advantage expected. ”

“ While the opportunity to commit violent economic crimes successfully was diminishing, there was a constantly increasing opportunity to commit other economic crimes, such as theft, embezzlement, and fraud. ”

“ Which is the greatest crime, to steal a man's money who is under bondage to a perverted appetite, and consequently comparatively irresponsible for his acts, or to sell him the above named poisons, which so seriously prevent development and endanger his health, reason, and life, and which bring such wretchedness and sorrow to so many homes? ”

“ The man who adulterates his milk to make a little extra money is in the same class with [Pg 23] the financial swindler. One waters his milk, the other his stock. The same underhanded desire to better one's self at the expense of one's neighbor is the moving cause in each case. The forger belongs to the class whose heads the criminologists delight to measure, but they would not measure your milkman's. The man who steals your purse is a felon and a subject of scientific investigation and discussion; the man who forges a trade-mark commits only a misdemeanor and excites no psychological interest. ”

“ But those fraudulent dealers conceal themselves under the fair show of a reputable traffic—they contrive in this manner to escape the infamy which justly belongs to them—and, under the disguise of wealth, credit, and character, to lurk in the bosom of society, wounding the hand that cherishes them, and scattering around them poison and death. ”

“ The result of that experience supplies to the question just asked this answer—Intoxication is the hot-bed from which crime springs. Directly or indirectly, all crime is traceable to it, the exceptions being so few as to establish the general rule. If a dray is stopped and robbed on the highway, what is the first object of search?—the keg of spirits. If there be no spirits, the plundered property is converted into cash, speedily to be spent in intoxication. If a store in the country is robbed, the first plunder is that of the cask or the bottle that contains some intoxicating liquor. ”

“ If we wish to cheat the government, we forge Exchequer bills, or bribe landing-waiters and supervisors, or courteously insinuate to a superior officer that a thousand pounds is not too great a mark of gratitude for enabling us to pocket twenty thousand at the expense of the Customs. If we wish to cheat the public, there is chalk for our milk, grains of paradise for our beer, sago and old rags for our sugar, lime for our linen, and devils' dust to cover our backs. Chemistry and electricity, steam and galvanism, all lend their excellent aid to the cheat, the swindler, and the thief ”

“ Lead, in whatever state it be taken into the stomach, occasions terrible diseases; and wine, adulterated with the minutest quantity of it, becomes a slow poison. The merchant or dealer who practises this dangerous sophistication, adds the crime of murder to that of fraud, and deliberately scatters the seeds of disease and death among those consumers who contribute to his emolument. ”

“ One day he heard a criminal case, which was in preparation and on the point of trial, discussed in a drawing-room. A wretched man, being at the end of his resources, had coined counterfeit money, out of love for a woman, and for the child which he had had by her. Counterfeiting was still punishable with death at that epoch. ”

“ If there is any kind of crime that is the consequence of the economic environment exclusively, this is the one. Such crimes can arise only in a time like ours, with its insatiable thirst for gold, with the unlimited opportunity to deceive the public, greedy for great profits. A superficial knowledge of economic history is enough to make it plain that the bourgeois crimes, and especially those which we are now discussing, can be committed only under an economic system of the kind that ours is. ”

“ The transportation and smuggling of cash in bulk form may now be the most common form of money laundering, and the movement of large sums of cash is one of the most reliable warning signs of drug trafficking, terrorism, money laundering, racketeering, tax evasion and similar crimes. ”

“ The measures adopted shall respect fundamental human rights and shall take due account of traditional licit uses, where there is historic evidence of such use, as well as the protection of the environment. ”

“ Should false money, whatever the metal may be, be found, besides the confiscation of everthing mentioned in the preceding clause, and besides a fine, equal to that the false money would represent, if legal, the offender shall be punished with all the penalties inflicted by the law on coiners; should the offender be unable to pay the fine, the metal shall be melted, and held, together with all the property that may have been recovered, for the benefit of the informer, and those who seized it. ”

“ It enriches the worst men, and ruins the innocent: It taints men’s morals, and defaces all the principles of virtue and fair dealing, and introduces combination and fraud in all sorts of traffick. It has changed honest commerce into bubbling ”

“ They are the children that testify as to the real character of their parents. God or no God, larceny is the enemy of industry—industry is the mother of prosperity—prosperity is a good, and therefore larceny is an evil. ”

“ There are no beggars, and petty larceny is almost unknown; storekeepers extort your money blandly and quietly, and the large larceny of selling mines at preposterous prices makes the people despise all larceny that is petty. ”

“ Article 36
⁠In event anyone falsifies, remakes, trades or steals the certificates or documents, seals or stamps, marks, sealing or quality certification marks, he shall be investigated for the criminal responsibility; if the circumstances are not serious enough for criminal punishments, the commodity inspection authorities shall order the offender to correct his acts, confiscate his illegal gains and impose on him a fine below the amount equivalent to the value of the commodities. ”

“ It was reserved for the nineteenth century to attempt to do away with the possibility of the vice of drunkenness by rendering penal the production of the means; which is as though the law should step in to render men chaste by emasculation, theft impracticable by the abolition of property; and not in the least more feasible than would be the carrying out of an edict against the production of animal, mineral, or vegetable poisons. ”