Cashing Out – What is Your Strategy?

Personal Freedom and Financial Privacy is Disappearing

Governments around the developed world, desperate for assets, are using laws designed to combat terrorism to keep track of, contain, and control your money and your freedom.

Suddenly, keeping your assets and property in the type, location and form that you choose has become nothing short of a criminal act. Your desire to hold property that you earned in a manner that keeps it out of the hands of the Treasury makes you suspect, and trust me, it is only getting worse.

The End of Cash

Banks throughout the world are trying to ban cash, forcing you to keep your money in the bank, under the control of the government. At the same time, the same governments are making it illegal to collect and pay for goods and services with cash.

edit – the tactic of banning cash is accelerating throughout the EU. Google search, ‘ban on cash’.

Depositing cash into your bank account can get your entire savings seized, with little to no recourse. Using a P2P service like LBC to buy and sell your bitcoin can result in LE contact, and will soon be viewed as a violation of MSB (criminal) regulations.

Where Exactly is the World Heading?

• Most ‘wealthy nations’ are actually bankrupt, owing debts they can never pay, and this makes them dangerous. When governments go broke, they immediately, with no warning, begin passing laws to legalize the theft of your property and savings.
• Laws and regulations are being passed at a blinding rate, regulating ownership and trade in bitcoin, currency and metals. In the US, it is now legal to confiscate property or currency of any large amount, without any reason or cause. The DEA will take your money, and dare you to claim it.
• Surveillance and government spying is growing, and any website you visit (torproject.org, for example) or comment you make can put you on a watch list.

And the cold hard truth? The US and European banking and payment systems are crumbling, and due for a reset. When the system collapses, we can either become victims of the past, or plan for the future. Power and wealth have always shifted, and it is about to happen again.

The problem we face is preserving freedom against the growing centralized power of a few great political and financial powers. The answer, the only answer, is diversification and decentralization.

The same ideas, goals and technologies that brought us bitcoin have also given us the ability to keep our assets, and conduct our business, in any way we want. But to do this correctly, there must be a plan.

It is no longer necessary to do business, keep your savings, own real estate, live and pay taxes all in the same country. In future posts, I will drill down deeper into strategies I use for my clients, but for now, here are the basics.

How to Keep Your Money and Your Freedom

1. Acquire a Second (or Third) Passport

This does not mean some sketchy Lithuanian passport from a DNM vendor (or a clearnet vendor). Any passport that you can buy, or that promises delivery in 3 months, or 6 months, is bullshit and wasted money.

There are some fairly easy (1 year wait) and valuable passports available from visa-free travel countries that do not recognize financial crimes as legitimate grounds for extradition. I had a total of three, legally obtained passports until FATCA laws made it logical for me to renounce my US citizenship, as more and more people are doing. Read here to find out why.

Why a second passport? Besides the likelihood of negative events like social unrest, lawsuits, LE troubles and safer travel, think of a second passport as your ’emergency escape plan’, and the key to separating your assets from easy reach.

Additionally, many (most) of my clients are from the US, and this makes it much easier to establish financial accounts and use services that will not operate in the US or do business with US citizens.

There are simple, cost-effective techniques for receiving citizenship and a passport from high-value, visa-free travel countries without bribes or scams. I will cover these on my next post.

2. Move Your Assets to Safety

Other than a local fund of 5-6 months of living expenses, plus an emergency fund, move your money away from your country of residence. There are some quickly moving developments that make it a must to establish a financial identity quickly, outside of your country of residence.

If your money is stored in a Western bank, one of three things is going to happen soon, and none of them is good. Someone (a competitor, a nosy neighbor) discovers your online business and identity, and doxxes you. A bureaucrat gets suspicious and freezes your accounts with the push of a button. LE confiscates your accounts and, even when you are not charged with a crime, they keep your money.

Starting in the US, with FATCA, the death of financial privacy began. Now, the OECD and G20 are making it global, with GATCA. If you have not established a foreign account in a friendly bank operating outside of SWIFT/SEPA by mid-2016, you will have lost an opportunity to protect your financial privacy.

3. Diversify Your Currencies and Assets

The key to protecting yourself is to have a system in place to thoroughly tumble your assets, especially if they start in bitcoin, through cash, gold and income-producing real estate. As cash use has become restricted in EU countries, I have moved my clients to private off-market sales of their bitcoins, or straight swaps for gold and real estate.

Once your bitcoin is exchanged for another hard asset, the chance of authorities ever finding your money is diminished by 90-95 %.

4. Start Planning Now

The greatest mistake my clients make is waiting until the last minute to plan the exit, often with LE right behind them. A solid, safe cash-out should be considered no less than a year to 18 months before you plan to bail.

Giving offshore companies, bank accounts and residency time to season raises your chances of a clean break, and lowers your chances of being flagged by KYC and AML profiles with your financial accounts.

Find someone you can trust (at least a little). As hard as it is in a business like DNM’s, surrounded by crooks and scumbags, there are a few people out there that actually do this as a profession.

In the next series of posts, I am going to drill down into case studies, ideas and specifics on where it is still safe (and easy) to open a bank account overseas, where to incorporate that can still totally shield your assets, and legal, effective ways to obtain a second passport in a no-or-low extradition country.

All of the advice and information I give here is current as of the date of posting, and everything here are the actual methods I use on a regular basis for my clients.