Rollo's tap water tasted off. Laurence swirled the liquid around his mouth before swirling, noticing the slight acridness of it. In front of him, Saltking, or rather Peter Salt tried explaining to him how crypto mining worked. "Imagine you're back in school, and your math teacher gives you an equation to solve, something long with several algebraic formulations. Now whoever solves it first, gets candy or something. That's crypto mining in a nutshell." said Peter while gesticulating. "So it's math but you make processors do it instead?" summarized Laurence before putting down the glass. Peter nodded before taking a sip of his espresso. "But don't try mining unless you have tens of thousands of dollars in cash and a power plant." cautioned Peter as he saw Laurence's eyes light up.
The ambiance changed as the Cafe slowly emptied out. The chemistry between Peter and Laurence spawned an hour-long conversation. Laurence occasionally took a sip of his tap water, frowning at the aftertaste while Peter ordered another espresso. "So what do you do?" asked Laurence curiously. "I'm a miner and part-time programmer, you?", answered Peter casually before bringing up his own question. "Unemployed lawyer.", said Laurence dispirited at being reminded of his lack of finances. Peter chuckled before scratching his chin. "I'm no expert, but can't you apply to a firm or something? Avencourt has more than sixty.", said Peter. "They aren't hiring graduates with no experience. By the way, didn't you say you needed a powerplant to mine profitably?" replied Laurence before changing the conversation.
"I started when I was in high school with a group of friends. Crypto was getting more popular, so we all spent our allowances on an ASIC and started mining Bitcoin, but they changed their minds and needed the money back, so I took my dad's credit card and let them use it for a bit. He beat me up for it, but the entire ASIC was mine then. After a few weeks at it, I'd made enough to cover the electricity cost with a bit of extra. After that, I spent the next two years saving my allowance and profits and buying more ASICs but after the mining payout for Bitcoin halved, I sold the ASICs for some GPUs and started mining privacy coins like Monero which made ASICs obsolete. Right now, I'd be making a bit higher than minimum wage in profit with the mining, electricity costs and all going up. But selling without KYC makes it high enough for me to stay out of larger firms and only take projects that interest me." explained Peter, giving Laurence an idea about his character and livelihood. Before Laurence could respond, Peter's phone rang.
Peter raised his hand and answered the call. Laurence lifted his glass to have another sip of the tap water before noticing it was empty. He looked around the Cafe while the conversation Peter was having on the phone heated up. Other than them, there were only two other tables that were occupied. The waitress from before caught his eye as she passed them to clear an empty table. Her white skirt looked more wrinkled than when he had first seen it, but that wasn't what drew his attention. What caught his eye were the mismatched sneakers she was wearing. The pale red and dark blue Nikes were an abomination. The waitress turned back while holding a tray and noticed his gaze.
She started walking towards him, sending Laurence's brain into panic mode. As she got closer to his table, Laurence imagined life in jail for harassment. He'd been on the internet too long to realize that those were rare cases. "No, I'm not color blind, I just woke up late and was in a hurry." said the waitress grimly, not noticing the bullets Laurence was sweating. He nearly deflated with relief. "Sorry, it's just I don't usually see people wearing mismatched shoes." apologized Laurence, his voice breaking in the middle. "Don't worry about it, you aren't the first guy here to notice. Rollo thought I couldn't find a matching pair and gave me a twenty to buy a new pair." said the waitress. Laurence chuckled before apologizing again. "Well, you need anything else? You've been here for an hour and all you've drank is tap water. My name's Rose by the way." asked the waitress before introducing herself. "No, it's fine. I'm Laurence.", said Laurence, hoping that Peter's call would end as he didn't know how to end this conversation. Just in time, Peter hung up the call and asked for an espresso to go.
"Sorry about that, a client had some last-minute specification changes. I have to go as well, I'll send you my number later. Nice meeting you." said Peter hurriedly before getting up and following Rose as she went to the front. Laurence remained seated, blankly staring at the scenery through the glass as he tried to process what had happened. A minute passed by like this before he also got up and walked to the register, hoping Rollo's took credit. "How much is the bill?" said Laurence to the guy at the register. "Table 18 right?" replied the cashier, his fade a centimeter away from being overgrown. "Yeah.", said Laurence nervously. "Your friend paid already." said the cashier before shooing Laurence away. Laurence stood outside the Cafe, breathing in the air before calling a taxi and making a mental note to pay Peter back for the water.
Before he knew it, Laurence was back in his apartment filling out a KYC for a somewhat disrepute crypto brokerage. Within minutes, his application was filled, and he transferred the Monero into the brokerage. Navigating the website to spot trading proved to be more difficult than he thought. Volley after volley of ads, tutorial popups, and warnings flashed across the screen as Laurence searched for the Monero/USDC trading subsection. The red and green flashes were disorienting and he struggled to make sense of the candle stick and ledger books. Laurence set up a sell order at nineteen cents higher than the market price to cover the exchange fees and waited.
Once the trade went through, Laurence connected the account to his old checking account in Avencourt Central and converted the USDC to fiat. The 5% fee associated with this hurt, but it was that or nothing. He was given a notification telling him that in a few hours, the account would receive 1225 USD. A ten-dollar wire fee was less than he expected, which made the sting of losing over 20% of his initial amount soothe. Laurence reclined back on the couch in relief. In one day, he'd laundered 2725 dollars. It might be less than what he'd need to not fail, but it was a start.
Tomorrow, he'd make more runs to the existing banks and other ones, along with making more exchange accounts to prevent overt suspicion. His stomach grumbled and he realized how hungry he'd been. Laurence hadn't eaten in over thirty hours. But he still didn't have any money of his own. Was it moral to use his employer's finances to order takeout? Laurence decided it was and rang a Chinese restaurant nearby, telling them he'd pay by cash. The change he'd gotten from the taxi driver that dropped him off at Rollo's had been converted into credit for the app, so he'd need to break another hundred. Laurence glanced at the duffel bags filled with tens of thousands of dollars and decided they could take the hit.
Half an hour later, Laurence paid and took the takeout from the distracted delivery guard. While the food was being delivered, he found another way to speed up the laundering process. Cayman Islands shell corporations. The nineteen dollars and thirty-two cents bill was reasonable considering he'd ordered enough food to last six meals. He opened a new Google tab and set the food on top of the coffee table, relishing the scent of the chow Mein. As he was looking for something to watch, his doorbell rang. Laurence jumped before racking his brain for what to do next. If it was the FBI, he'd probably be on the floor right now. His landlord Sugon wasn't as polite as to only ring the doorbell. Laurence tiptoed over to the door and looked through the eyehole. John stood outside, holding a small shoebox.
Laurence opened the door immediately and tried speaking but John signaled him to be quiet and walked inside. Laurence closed the door and locked it before turning back. John inspected the takeout he ordered on his coffee table before leaving the shoebox next to the food. "Alright, I'm going to make this quick. Tell me how much you've laundered today, how much you'll launder tomorrow, and how much you think you'll be able to clear before I have to shoot you.", said John imperatively before pulling out his Glock and aiming at Laurence.
Laurence fell over in surprise but regained his bearings and slowly walked over to John. "I want an explanation kid. A full one. Everything you've done, everything you plan to do, and everything you didn't do. I got time this night, so feel free to sit down." instructed John, his tone indicating that sitting down wasn't a choice. Laurence lowered himself onto the couch and organized his thoughts before beginning. "I started off structuring, creating new checking accounts in banks that have a history of failing audits and being loose with their deposits. I've laundered a grand and a half today through this. Next, I bought some cryptocurrency from a dealer in cash, deposited it into an exchange, and had it converted into fresh dollars, which should arrive in my savings account by wire in a few hours. said Laurence, stopping to take a breath and watching John's reaction. He took his nod as a sign to continue.
"Today I've laundered 2725 dollars for 3200, including taxi fees and operation costs. I have enough taxi credit for several trips to other banks, and I'll arrange another meeting with the crypto dealer for a much larger sum, approximately thirteen grand's worth, which with his ten percent commission and exchange fees will come down to 12,225, give or take ten for transaction expenses. If all goes well, a further 1500 will be laundered through existing checking accounts, and 6000 through new ones." summarized Laurence, waiting for John's response. "Too little. If whatever you plan to do ends successfully tomorrow, you're still three hundred grand short. What's the fix?" criticized John while clicking his tongue.
"This is where a shell company comes in. I've found a reliable registration platform in the Cayman Islands. Two will be registered, with a pseudonym as director. The existence of these companies will be used to register corporate checking accounts in all the banks I'll be using and have used. Each company costs two thousand to register, but you can have several checking accounts in the same bank for companies. The eight grand I'll launder tomorrow under my name will be over fifty with the companies. If I can find a scapegoat to be the director of other ones, it's doable." convinced Laurence, stuttering here and there as the thoughts exited his mind. Now, for the moment of truth. If John decided that it was too risky, he was finished. John sighed before removing the Glock's safety.