They say that truth is stranger than fiction.
Someone (probably Mark Twain) said that the difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction has to make sense.
Some of you will have read a previous post http://djharrison99.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/money-laundering-regulations.html where Jenny Parker tried to pay cash into a bank account and got herself into difficulties. A good friend of mine, and someone who has certainly read Due Diligence, fell into the same trap very recently. My friend is about to embark on an exciting business venture and is setting up a new company. One of the investors gave him a few thousand pounds in cash because he didn't have the bank account details. On attempting to pay this into his account, my friend was taken aside, put in an interrogation room, visited and questioned by various people then told that the bank wouldn't accept the money.
He asked them if they would take a smaller amount rather than the whole sum but they were adamant that they'd accept none of it. He had to take the cash back to his investor who put it back into his bank before transferring it electronically.
I'm sorry, but I had to laugh. He'd read Due Diligence where he'd experienced Jenny Parker's discomfiture and had the money laundering regulations explained. Jenny is fiction but the world she inhabits is the same one that we do. The same laws apply to us all as they do to her.
So, be warned, just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's not true.
The picture above shows what the regulations are trying to cope with and why everyone is affected.
