Passengers for Dubai arrested with undeclared forex

Arthur said:
I am not suggesting the law is not clear. I am saying expressly that the law is a bad and unjust law.

Many state have laws that are unjust. South Africa for years had laws criminalising the sale of soap after 6pm, for example, not to speak of hugely unjust laws like legally-entrenched racial discrimination. Despite being clear and unambiguous, those laws are unjust and immoral.
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I think this specific law is actually good and very just...

Its very clear when trying to sneak money out of a place you aren't doing it with the best of intentions.
 
ToxicBunny said:
I think this specific law is actually good and very just...

Its very clear when trying to sneak money out of a place you aren't doing it with the best of intentions.
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Begs the question. If there weren't such a law then there'd be no need to sneak it.

Some more immoral/unjust 'financial' laws in SA: Possessing unwrought gold and unpolished diamonds (without a government permit) is a criminal offence. SA and the old USSR for years were the only countries in the world that had these laws.
 
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I wonder how the police came to suspect them ? Did they notice the money during the scanning process?
 
Arthur said:
I am not suggesting the law is not clear. I am saying expressly that the law is a bad and unjust law.

Many state have laws that are unjust. South Africa for years had laws criminalising the sale of soap after 6pm, for example, not to speak of hugely unjust laws like legally-entrenched racial discrimination. Despite being clear and unambiguous, those laws are unjust and immoral.
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LOL - is that for real?
 
berghie said:
LOL - is that for real?
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Yes. For about twenty years supermarkets and cafes had to close off their soaps section at 6pm. When I was in high school a supermarket in Northcliff was fined for selling washing powder to a customer at 18h10. Older forumites will remember the closed soaps & suds aisles in those supermarkets that had special government permission to stay open after 17h30.
 
Was it to prevent drunk people from washing at night?
 
Arthur said:
Yes. For about twenty years supermarkets and cafes had to close off their soaps section at 6pm. When I was in high school a supermarket in Northcliff was fined for selling washing powder to a customer at 18h10. Older forumites will remember the closed soaps & suds aisles in those supermarkets that had special government permission to stay open after 17h30.
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Pray, do tell
 
Arthur said:
So your presumption is guilt. I have the exact opposite approach: innocent until proven guilty.

No-one should have to account to anyone else why they are carrying cash of whatever amount. Period.
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Well it would be very easy to figure out.

If their tax return for the past 10 years averages 100k a year...where did the 6.7 Million come from?
 
SauRoNZA said:
Well it would be very easy to figure out.

If their tax return for the past 10 years averages 100k a year...where did the 6.7 Million come from?
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Of course.

I think you're missing the point. I'm not saying they're not guilty of some other crime. They might well be, and that is for ordinary detective work to discover. But the presumption should be that they are innocent - until there are good prima facie grounds for suspecting the money is ill-gotten.

Merely being in possession of a large sum of money is not in itself a sufficient grounds for suspecting a crime, at least not to the point of arresting them.

I see no moral difference between carrying cash between two office buildings in the same city or between two countries. It is not a crime to fail to declare cash when moving from Rondebosch to Rosebank, and neither should it be when taking cash from Pretoria to Paris or anywhere else on the planet.

I would be outraged if you were arrested for failing to declare the cash in your possession when travelling from Benoni to Berario. The same applies when travelling internationally.

It is your money, not the State's or anyone else's. Until proven otherwise.

If the cops suspect you of committing a crime simply because you have a large amount of cash then they need to investigate further without just arresting you. There needs to be real grounds for suspecting another crime.

In my view, criminalising the failure to declare the cash is an unjust law because it is not the business of government to say how much money you may possess or move to wherever you wish.

There are no sound financial, economic or moral grounds for requiring citizens to declare to the State what cash they have in their possession when they travel. Of course the State can (and does) quite legitimately require citizens to declare their income for income tax assessment purposes, but that is something done once or twice a year.
 
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Arthur said:
I am not suggesting the law is not clear. I am saying expressly that the law is a bad and unjust law.
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The law allows an undeclared amount of around USD10,000 , anything above that you're free to carry but just need to declare it.

I haven't traveled international for a while but IIRC the deceleration is made at check-in.

Isn't this an international counter terrorism funding issue?

Yes, I know it doesn't change your personal opinion on it being a bad law.
 
Yes, it's a fairly common thing in the post-911 world.

And you're right - it doesn't change my view that it's bad law.

More sinister for me is the ever-increasing expansion of State power, and the ever-diminishing freedom of the ordinary citizen. The assumption increasingly is that the State is the Great Protector, Great Provider, Great Educator, Great Houser, Great Doctor, and Great Owner, and that citizens are subordinate to the State. Yet throughout history the greatest oppressor and violator of people's lives, rights, property, liberty, and dignity has been the State. We must be very careful about how much power we give to Caesar.

This type of law is premised on the notion that the State is somehow the ultimate owner of money, wealth economy, etc. It is most emphatically not, in my view.
 
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TBH, they mention that it’s part of an investigation of a syndicate.
 
Yes, good for them. We need crime syndicates shut down and eliminated.

How pathetic that their investigation is seemingly so ineffective that they have to invoke this administrative technicality. If they had prima facie grounds for believing the money was ill-gotten proceeds from criminal activity then the arrests could proceed on those grounds even if this 'moving money abroad declaration' law didn't exist.
 
Arthur said:
Yes, good for them. We need crime syndicates shut down and eliminated.

How pathetic that their investigation is seemingly so ineffective that they have to invoke this administrative technicality. If they had prima facie grounds for believing the money was ill-gotten proceeds from criminal activity then the arrests could proceed on those grounds even if this 'moving money abroad declaration' law didn't exist.
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So a law that stops you from taking a gun on an aircraft is also an unjust law as it is assumed you have some nefarious purpose?
 
Vrotappel said:
So a law that stops you from taking a gun on an aircraft is also an unjust law as it is assumed you have some nefarious purpose?
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Check message 15. Already suggested but no answer.
 
Arthur said:
So your presumption is guilt. I have the exact opposite approach: innocent until proven guilty.

No-one should have to account to anyone else why they are carrying cash of whatever amount. Period.
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Yeah just like no one should have to account for having a dead body in the boot of their car? Helloo!! Innocent until proven guilty!
BOOM!!
 
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airborne said:
Yeah just like no one should have to account for having a dead body in the boot of their car? Helloo!! Innocent until proven guilty!
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Or having 2 kg of cocaine in your stomach.

Somebody might have put it there without your knowledge.
 
It's standard practice and prudent to arrest the person caught red handed in possession of damning evidence, at which point they're still innocent until proven guilty, and thereafter the legal process is followed.

Apart from money potentially used to fund terrorism, most countries have currency regulations, and these suspects clearly made a false declaration.
Add to that the fact that there's a few Gupta's and associates that are feeling the heat and would be trying to illegally move funds offshore, and I'd really enjoy them being caught.
 
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