Don't you think they're just trying to stop cartel members from walking into a real estate office or car dealership with a suitcase full of laundered cash and no record of where or how the money was earned in the first place?
Yeah, I think that's exactly what they are trying to do...
unfortunately, laws apply to EVERYONE, not just drug dealers or those who maintain nefarious or illegal activities.
I agree that it would be "odd" for someone who is not a drug dealer to have 500k pesos in a suitcase under their bed... but I don't think it is necessarily unlikely or out of the question. Many people (especially older people who lost their livelihood during the depression in the 30's) don't trust the fractional reserve nature of government sponsored banking systems, and prefer to keep their cash and financial assets in non-electronic forms (like cash and real estate).
A physical transferrence of real estate ownership does not require an electronic currency transaction - the previous owner of the deed only needs to record a name change on the deed to the property in the prescence of a notario, and they could then walk away with the suitcase of cash - it WAS perfectly legal... until now.
Under this law- such a person could not aquire expensive real assets using non-electronic cash.
This law is a coercion ploy to get people to distrust government issued paper money in large amounts, based on the "It must be laundered drug money" principle... and I think it is also a measure to try and get more people to take on electronic debit cards and mortgage debt.
The very things that the US population is now learning are very damaging to personal long term fiancial well-being, are now being coercively pushed south of the border.
I think that this might be a slippery slope, because there might be MANY people who maintain large physical cash stashes that are NOT drug dealers, but this new law will force the government, and the banks and notarios, to be suspicious of them anyway; and and it will put a stop their ability to purchase what they want (in spite of the fact that they have never been criminals, but have instead only managed to earn and save large balances of cash...)
In actuality- I think over longer terms this law might serve to restore pricing in Mexico back to levels that are more in-line with the exchange rate of the mex peso rather than the exchange rate of the dollar, so some good may actually come of this for poorer mexican citizens who live in areas dominated by dollar based tourism, IMO...
However, the flip side is that it might NOT be good for International (American) speculators who thought that investment in a dollar supported mexican real estate markets was (or is) a good idea...
Again, I'm just saying that government induced currency control measures never end well. The law on unintended consequences always seems to rear it's ugly head....
Perhaps this time will be different.
