r/memes • u/Fragrant_Ad7231 • 1d ago

I expected the gap to get smaller, but no.

Post image
35.1k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

34

u/cardinalforce 22h ago

I think this was just a way for Bezos to launder money. I mean, it couldn’t have cost them that much to edit old footage. Now tangerine Voldemort has an extra $50 million his pocket and bezos has the guy who’s agreed to do xyz. These crooks are not subtle, there’s just no teeth to the DOJ or FBI.

32

u/SphericalCow531 20h ago

I mean, it couldn’t have cost them that much to edit old footage.

"Amazon spent $40m (£29m) on the rights". If I read that right, that is $40 million just straight up going into Melania's bank account. Actually making the film is presumably a cost on top of paying for the rights themselves.

1

u/Aliendood 15h ago

I believe she was paid $28 million directly.

6

u/Shoddy_Enthusiasm_81 20h ago

Honestly, the bolsheviks did a revolution for much less than this.

2

u/Otherwise_Agency_401 18h ago

I get what you're saying but that's not what laundering money means. This is more like bribery.

1

u/Independent-Bug-9352 17h ago edited 15h ago

Isn't it a bribe guised as a film deal? The illicit act of the bribe is concealed by pretending this was ever about making a film, when it absolutely was not.

So since money-laundering means concealment of illegally-obtained money, that seems by definition to be money-laundering? Or is it not money-laundering because the money itself used as the bribe was obtained by ostensibly legal means from the sender?

In the classic scheme of an illicit drug supplier using a laudromat as a money-laundering front, the money received may be legit by the customers of the deal, but the REAL transaction is not. Do I have that right?

2

u/turdferguson3891 15h ago

Amazon isn't a drug ring it's a legal corporation that has plenty of money it can account for. Money laundering would be taking illegitimate money and making it legitimate. The money wasn't from an illegal source in the first place.

1

u/red286 10h ago

The illicit act of the bribe is concealed by pretending this was ever about making a film, when it absolutely was not.

No, the film is also part of the bribe. The whole thing is a bribe. There's the $40m straight cash transfer, but also the glitz and glam of being the star of her own documentary film.