Getting illegally earned money out of China?

[mungouk]

@889 Hmm, I think you may be right. 

 

It's just that the Swapsy user interface makes it seem otherwise.   The whole user experience could do with a re-design really.

 

 

[imron]

I use TransferWise regularly (not for any payments to/from China) and also recommend it if anyone has to deal with sending/receiving money in a foreign currency.  It has far better exchange rates than other services I’ve used. 

[889]

"At Swapsy, our users make peer-to-peer currency swap with their own e-wallets, including Paypal / Wechat Pay etc. Swapsy does not hold any client money. Instead, we exchange e-wallet information among users for THEM to swap the currencies." (empasis added)

 

https://theswapsy.com/about

[roddy]

Transferwise has been fine for me receiving money from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but as noted no mainland service - I've always assumed they just can't operate there. 

[889]

Transferwise does send to UnionPay cards in China, but only to cards held by Chinese citizens:

 

"You can send CNY to private individuals who have a UnionPay bank card or an Alipay ID. They must have opened their bank account with a Chinese national ID card — we can't send CNY to accounts opened with a passport, driver's licence or military document."

 

https://transferwise.com/help/14/currencies/2955298/cny-transfers

[Jan Finster]

On 6/17/2020 at 11:52 PM, mungouk said:

Oh right yes... "cash" as in that paper stuff with pictures of dead peoples' faces.  

 

I kind of remember it.

 

How else would you receive illegal money in China? ? If they transfer it as a red envelope by Wechat (微信红包), the money should be on the government's radar and could be subject to questions or taxes (International Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs)) (?).

 

Transferwise requires a bank account as far as I know.

 

For cash it seems the "swallowed condoms solution" is the way to go ?

But, in recent years it seems to be getting more and more difficult for Chinese companies to pay large amount of money as cash, as they will be asked questions where the money went.

 

 

[ChTTay]

16 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

If they transfer it as a red envelope by Wechat (微信红包), the money should be on the government's radar

I can see that “they” might have access to that data but doubt they would check unless you were already on their radar somehow. The amount of small transactions flying through wechat must be insane. It’s doubtful Teaching English merits huge sums being transferred. I do agree that if they do get on the radar and have been using wechat pay the whole time then their history will be right there! 

[mungouk]

7 hours ago, ChTTay said:

The amount of small transactions flying through wechat must be insane.

 

Bigger ones too... I can't be the only one who paid 3 months' worth of rent using WeChat transfers (no need to use 红包). 

[Jan Finster]

11 hours ago, ChTTay said:

I can see that “they” might have access to that data but doubt they would check unless you were already on their radar somehow. The amount of small transactions flying through wechat must be insane.

 

I guess there are no people monitoring this, but computer algorithms. If a foreigner on a student visa suddenly or on a monthly basis gets red envelopes, it would not be difficult to have this AI trigger an alert.

My (paranoid) assumption is they do not care to follow up on it unless you do something else that gets you in contact with law enforcement. Then they will dish out everything they have on you... Just kidding (or am I ?) ?

[ChTTay]

33 minutes ago, Jan Finster said:

is they do not care to follow up on it unless you do something else that gets you in contact with law

This is exactly my point. They won’t be monitoring these transactions closely BUT will have access to the data should they need to zero in on someone. 
 

so we’re in agreement... ?
 

It’s the same with sharing tax info. They’ll almost certainly be going after the “big fish” specifically rather than casting a wide net for small fish who might have some small undeclared income abroad. 

[anonymoose]

2 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

My (paranoid) assumption is they do not care to follow up on it unless you do something else that gets you in contact with law enforcement.

 

Or your government does something that pisses off the CCP so they decide to arrest a few people from your country coincidentally.