That's one of the things I thought Patrick's article would shed more specific light on, e.g. is it necessary to be in that kind of rarified group (e.g. someone rich enough to have special services with the bank)? Or is being rich enough to own a $3M+ home enough?
The reason why I think the threshold may be much lower than what Patrick insinuates it to be, is because similar big cash scams have been reported by people seemingly much poorer than the NYMag columnist:
> What happened next is tragic for Colleen as she went to her bank. “I told him how much I had in there and he told me to withdraw everything but the $700. I told the lady I need to withdraw $19,000. I said I needed it cash.” Colleen said.
$19,000 is of course less than $50k, but it's still well above the $10k anti-laundering reporting threshold, and it involves a victim in Knoxville for whom that $19k represented her "life savings", yet it seems the bank didn't stop her from a same-day total withdrawal.
(note: this Knoxville incident happened in Dec. 2024, so it's of course possible the victim is perpetrating a copycat fabrication after reading the NYMag article)
The reason why I think the threshold may be much lower than what Patrick insinuates it to be, is because similar big cash scams have been reported by people seemingly much poorer than the NYMag columnist:
https://www.wate.com/news/top-stories/knoxville-woman-loses-...
> What happened next is tragic for Colleen as she went to her bank. “I told him how much I had in there and he told me to withdraw everything but the $700. I told the lady I need to withdraw $19,000. I said I needed it cash.” Colleen said.
$19,000 is of course less than $50k, but it's still well above the $10k anti-laundering reporting threshold, and it involves a victim in Knoxville for whom that $19k represented her "life savings", yet it seems the bank didn't stop her from a same-day total withdrawal.
(note: this Knoxville incident happened in Dec. 2024, so it's of course possible the victim is perpetrating a copycat fabrication after reading the NYMag article)