Cash Control within EU ?

[betelgeuse]

No... there are drugs dogs and there are money dogs. Different training.

I really wonder if the dogs smells the difference between 40 bills of 500 or 40 bills of 5 euro's, the first is illegal the second not....for that matter 40 bills of 100 or 200 is still legal...
So does the dog smell the difference between 17 and 21 bills of 500?

So this sounds a bit unbelievable to me.

My assumption is that few people carry 40 bills of small dominations. This makes it feasible to check everyone who carries many bills.

[Piet]

No... there are drugs dogs and there are money dogs. Different training.

I really wonder if the dogs smells the difference between 40 bills of 500 or 40 bills of 5 euro's, the first is illegal the second not....for that matter 40 bills of 100 or 200 is still legal...
So does the dog smell the difference between 17 and 21 bills of 500?

So this sounds a bit unbelievable to me.

My assumption is that few people carry 40 bills of small dominations. This makes it feasible to check everyone who carries many bills.

Indeed but what about the 20 bills, I for example took at least 15 bills of 50 with me last visit outside Finland (I prefer to pay cash and hate CreditCards and their insecurity), that is only 4 bills short of 19, and 19x500 bill is illegal.....

So I can still not see the point of a "money dog" at the airport, in shipping ok... someone shipping money will ship a lot more than 40 bills of anything..
My guess is that the dogs at the airport are always drug dogs and explosives dogs. Cash is picked out differently (scanner like anti theft sytem... the metal strips in high value bills). At least that is my believe.. but I have a tin foil hat too

[Hämeen Hitain]

http://yle.fi/uutiset/ensimmainen_rahak ... eo/6814156

[Piet]

http://yle.fi/uutiset/ensimmainen_rahak ... eo/6814156

I stand corrected, but indeed pretty new and in 2013 he was still in training... so any news about the dog now, how many (valuable) bills can he distinguish? Sadly the article does not mention much about that, would be interesting to know more about how, it just says that they teach (not taught) the dog not to bark below 10.000. He might have barked at me with just the stack of 50 euro bills .

Any way the dog I saw 2 weeks ago, was a German Sheppard, not the cute Black Labrador, this was clearly a drug dog, waiting at the one way door towards the luggage belts. Drug dog, because bringing money into Finland would be pointless (f.e. taxes) and bringing explosives from the plane to the airport would be even more pointless. What else can you smuggle in your hand luggage without being obvious..

But then again, some things here in Finland are not that logical

edit fixed eusa wall

[Rip]

Drug dog, because bringing money into Finland would be pointless (f.e. taxes)

Avoiding taxes and illegal origin of the money would probably be the leading reasons why someone would want to transfer large amounts of money as physical bank notes in the first place.

[Piet]

Drug dog, because bringing money into Finland would be pointless (f.e. taxes)

Avoiding taxes and illegal origin of the money would probably be the leading reasons why someone would want to transfer large amounts of money as physical bank notes in the first place.

Even in that case you want (to spend) your money outside of Finland instead of in Finland, did you check the prices here lately, not even talking about VAT (ALV) of 24%?

So I guess it is safe to say that a money dog will be positioned at the departures (mostly at the gates) instead of at the arrivals at the airport.

I searched a bit around (duckduckgo) and found that Money dogs give a huge amounts of false positives, the problem is as I stated before, the dog cannot count, just smell bank paper and ink, so if it is not much or packed real good (airtight) the dog might not even give alarm, or... it gives alarm with everyone having little more than a pair of bank notes.

The dog will also alarm when a bigger amount of passports than normal is found (same paper and ink) or a booklet of blank cheques.

But this is all becoming a little off topic.

European law just dictates (from 2005?) that all sums of cash money above 10.000 euro should be reported at customs or a fine can be levied, or/and the money can be held hostage until a plausible explanation is given to the origin and destination of the money.

[betelgeuse]

so if it is not much or packed real good (airtight) the dog might not even give alarm,

If this was true, smuggling drugs would be pretty easy.

[DMC]

If this was true, smuggling drugs would be pretty easy.

Do you think it isn't?
If all the reports of drug use, drug dealers etc are correct I think smuggling drugs must be easy - or where do they come from?

[Upphew]

so if it is not much or packed real good (airtight) the dog might not even give alarm,

If this was true, smuggling drugs would be pretty easy.

Dog can react to minute amount of cocaine, but can't mark every scent of cash.

[Rosamunda]

Even in that case you want (to spend) your money outside of Finland instead of in Finland, did you check the prices here lately, not even talking about VAT (ALV) of 24%?

I think you answered your own question.

If someone is bringing large amounts of cash into Finland it is because they intend to conduct business here without paying VAT. That could be anything from buying stolen goods to actually paying for legit goods and services outside the system. Customs and Vero would be interested in finding out who is doing business that way (ie not declaring income or paying taxes in Finland) and one way of doing that is to question the consumer. In B2B trading the customer has the responsibility to verify the provider is a bona fide taxpayer.

And, quite simply, it is one way of avoiding things like gift tax and/or inheritance tax.

[Piet]

Even in that case you want (to spend) your money outside of Finland instead of in Finland, did you check the prices here lately, not even talking about VAT (ALV) of 24%?

I think you answered your own question.

If someone is bringing large amounts of cash into Finland it is because they intend to conduct business here without paying VAT. That could be anything from buying stolen goods to actually paying for legit goods and services outside the system. Customs and Vero would be interested in finding out who is doing business that way (ie not declaring income or paying taxes in Finland) and one way of doing that is to question the consumer. In B2B trading the customer has the responsibility to verify the provider is a bona fide taxpayer.

And, quite simply, it is one way of avoiding things like gift tax and/or inheritance tax.

I think you misunderstand me when I was referring to the prices here in Finland, they are significantly higher than in other places in f.e. Europe, so why bother to bring money into Finland if your "euro" is more worth in for example Estonia, wouldn't you bring it there instead? I would! same for the Taxes like VAT (ALV) why pay 24% here in Finland with your illegal imported money, if you can buy the same stuff in f.e. Netherlands with 21% VAT.

It would be the same as someone would try to import a car from Finland to Germany, a universally stupid idea (IMHO).

Further more, salaries are public in Finland so as soon as you are being seen spending more than you can theoretically have, some neighbour will rat you out to the IRS.

So I really see no benefit in bringing (huge amounts of) money to Finland, only out of Finland.

Last but not least, Finland does a lot of things worse than other (EU) countries, but really the Customs and "Tax legislation makers" from other (EU) countries could learn a thing or two from their Finnish counterparts. (And I hope they don't )

[Upphew]

It would be the same as someone would try to import a car from Finland to Germany, a universally stupid idea (IMHO).

http://yle.fi/uutiset/saksalainen_ostaa ... ot/6328500

[Rip]

The money imported here ius not necessarily meant to be spent here. Before this current 'Völkerwanderung' at least Finland probably had relative to its population quite a large number of crossings of the EU/Schengen outer borders. Both from Asia and from Russia.

[Piet]

It would be the same as someone would try to import a car from Finland to Germany, a universally stupid idea (IMHO).

http://yle.fi/uutiset/saksalainen_ostaa ... ot/6328500

Those exceptions just only confirm what I said, no-one will buy a 3 year old BMW in Finland to import it to Germany..

[Upphew]

It would be the same as someone would try to import a car from Finland to Germany, a universally stupid idea (IMHO).

http://yle.fi/uutiset/saksalainen_ostaa ... ot/6328500

Those exceptions just only confirm what I said, no-one will buy a 3 year old BMW in Finland to import it to Germany..

Just had to dig that news up as you used "universally"...