Is Amazon being used as a vehicle for money laundering? Are you an unwitting partner?

[mainer]

I just saw this article in the New York Times about used paperbacks, worth probably only pennies, being sold on Amazon for thousands of dollars.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/technology/amazon-used-paperback-book-pricing.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

Then I checked the titles of my own books on Amazon (I'm a writer) and found one of my used paperbacks for sale at $4600, and several others for sale in the thousands of dollars. These are not rare books. There are hundreds of thousands of these in circulation.

The only reason I can think of to buy books at these prices is to move large amounts of cash undetected.

These "booksellers" should be investigated.

[marybourg]

1. Another, more benign, reason

Is to maintain the ad while not having any copies to sell. A placeholder.

[Historic NY]

2. Hum.......

there some e-bay listings where the same thing happens. I can't believe Amazon would let someone get away with it. At least with ebay it can be reported a suspicious. I buy books but I certainly shop around to find the cheapest one.

[mainer]

3. along those same lines -- Amazon and money laundering...

“Its not hard to imagine how these books could be used to launder money using stolen credit cards or facilitating transactions for illicit materials or funding of illegal activities,” Reames said. “I can not believe Amazon is unaware of this and is unwilling to intercede to stop it. I also believe they are not properly vetting their new accounts to limit tax fraud via stolen identities.”

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/02/money-laundering-via-author-impersonation-on-amazon/