Wow, thanks for the view into how remittance shops work.
I can’t see how money transfers can be stopped or even controlled effectively.
In addition to remittance shops, there are just too many ways to get money, which for law abiding people is a good thing, but dealing with money that hasn’t been taxed and gets to foreign recipients is a tough one to stop.
As I’d said before, an illegal could open an account with a major bank. Bank of America has been open about issuing credit cards to illegals, it would be a shocker if they didn’t allow savings/checking accounts too. I don’t get the comfort level that BOA is the only major bank doing this, but normal practice is to require a W-9 or W-8 certification, although I don’t think that an account is closed if one isn’t received.
Like other major banks, BOA has relationships with other banks that would accept withdrawals from ATMs. Unless the account holder contested it, the transaction would have to process and I can’t see a way to stop it.
“Like other major banks, BOA has relationships with other banks that would accept withdrawals from ATMs.”
CIRRUS is ubiquitous at ATMs all around the globe, including virtually all American banks. Theoretically if you deposit to an account in Chicago, your friend or relative in Jakarta can withdraw cash from any CIRRUS machine using the ATM card for that account.
The only hitches are that (a) many regional banks in the U.S. don’t allow automatic ATM withdrawls from overseas, you’ll probably have to call them to insist they enable overseas use, and (b) even multinationals like Citibank will flag your account if they observe abberant use, but you can inform their security department to ignore “X” type of transaction.
In any case, the banks keep a fairly close eye on international transactions including ATM use abroad.