A little later, shortly after four in the afternoon and before the Revenue Service closed, Mr. Fox had someone take the money, along with his collection of various receipts and vouchers, to the Revenue Service for registration.
That was how federal law worked. If you wanted to deposit more than five thousand dollars into a bank, you had to provide the bank with legitimate documentation.
The documents did not have to prove that all the money was genuine currency. They had to prove how the money had been obtained and whether taxes had been paid on it.
Without such documentation, the bank would not accept the cash inflow and would raise the monitoring level on the relevant accounts.
Some people had once used relatively simple methods to deal with money like this. For example, they would split ten thousand dollars into ten portions, have ten different people deposit the portions into their own accounts, and then transfer the money to a designated account.
That could effectively evade the Federal Government's "Large Cash Management Regulations." Why didn't people use it? The answer was just as simple. Once the bank transfers became concentrated, the bank would consider the risk too high and immediately freeze both the outgoing and incoming accounts. The accounts would remain frozen until both parties could provide sufficient evidence that the money was legitimate.
The truth was that they naturally could not prove it. The bank would then confiscate the money, pay the Revenue Service a special tax on it, and swallow the rest.
If the account owner refused to accept that, they could always sue. However, most account owners who encountered such problems ultimately chose to suffer the loss in silence. Better to lose the money than end up losing everything.
Besides the banks watching the various accounts, the Financial Crime Investigation Department of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was watching them too. There might indeed have been some survivors, but more often than not, people were dragged out into the open.
Countless cases had reminded people time and time again that they could break the law, but they could not fail to pay their taxes.
After Mr. Fox's nephew and several subordinates delivered the money to the Revenue Service in a box truck and registered it, they took the forms stamped with Sabine City's tax-registration-completed seal to the nearby Prosperous Glory Bank. It was a very old bank and one of the empire's Big Six Banks.
Its founder had come from the predecessor of the Bayer Federation, during the era of the Bayer Empire: the Prosperous Glory Prince. Although the empire had perished, some things had survived.
The moment the group pushed the carts used to transport loose change into the bank, a massive crystal chandelier hung down from the upper-level space, whose ceiling soared at least twenty meters high. Light passed through every crystal facet and reached every corner of the bank.
The marble floor, maintained every day, was as smooth as a mirror. Rare golden natural marble hidden beneath its polished surface shimmered brilliantly under the light.
The place resembled a golden palace, exuding an air of nobility from every corner.
A distinguished-looking bank manager was already waiting by the door. A warm smile spread across his face as he came forward. He kept asking questions, filling out a form on the writing board in his hand, and glancing at the tax-registration form held by the people escorting the money.
Calling him a bank manager was not entirely accurate. He was a client manager for Prosperous Glory Bank. There were at least twenty managers like him in this hall. Each had an independent office and their own clients.
"Please wait. I'll go file the report..." The manager had staff bring over some coffee and snacks while he walked toward the administrative office inside. It was standard procedure.
Depositing such a large amount of loose change required a considerable number of people to "sift" it. The bank had a sorting device that resembled the sieve used by farmers in the countryside. After repeated manual sorting, coins of different denominations and sizes fell through different holes, speeding up the counting process.
Although this was already an extremely fast method by banking standards, it still took some time.
Just then, the phone behind Mr. Fox, who was enjoying a Kolef, suddenly rang. He drew in a breath of Kolef, and the dense smoke entered his mouth with the texture of thick liquid. He stirred it with his tongue, and every floating molecule that split apart brought him a languid pleasure.
On the third ring, he blinked, walked over to the table, and picked up the phone. "This is Gatnau Financial Company..."
A sweet operator's voice immediately came from the other end. "Dear Mr. Fox, I'm a telephone service representative from Prosperous Glory Bank. There's an irregularity with the deposits and withdrawals in your account with us. If you have time, please go to a nearby Prosperous Glory Bank branch as soon as possible to resolve it..."
"There's a problem with my account?" Mr. Fox did not immediately realize that this was a trap, nor did he realize that he was the one caught in it. He simply thought that the cash checks he had been handling recently might have developed a problem.
For certain reasons that everyone more or less knew, counterfeit cash checks appeared frequently in the Bayer Federation every year.
No matter how sophisticated the anti-counterfeiting measures on cash checks were, it was ultimately difficult to eliminate imitations completely. Besides, this era had not yet entered the age of electronic information. Cashing a check across state lines was a complicated, lengthy process for banks, but for counterfeiters, it took only an instant.
This created hundreds or even thousands of disputes every year. Most of the time, banks were unwilling to bear all the responsibility themselves. They would do everything possible to find fault with the check holder and minimize their own compensation.
Whenever something like that happened, they would notify the account holder and ask them to come to the bank to resolve the issue, or upgrade their cash-check book.
Mr. Fox hung up the phone and pursed his lips. He soon arrived at the bank with his son. To his surprise, his subordinates were still in the manager's office, and the money had not yet been deposited. Things seemed to be moving unusually slowly today.
"It's still not done?" He frowned. At his age, he was past the stage of enjoying surprises and unexpected events. Whenever something unpredictable happened, he felt irritated.
The manager nodded. "There are more customers today, so we can't free up too many staff members for now. Please wait a little longer..."
At the same time, in a place Mr. Fox did not notice, at least two cameras and one video camera were pointed at him. When the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Revenue Service joined forces to bring someone down—especially when that person might be a criminal—they never had to wait long.
"About time. We can move now..."
Before Mr. Fox could reach the service desk, someone who looked like a bank employee walked in from outside. The manager in the room immediately left. The newcomer held a writing board and smiled as he pointed at the sofa beside him. "Sit!"
The man's seemingly muddled behavior immediately aroused Mr. Fox's wariness. Most people with trouble hanging over them remained on high alert for long periods.
He did not sit down. Instead, he frowned and asked, "Who are you?"
The newcomer smiled but did not answer Mr. Fox. Instead, he had the workers counting coins in the office stop. To nail these people directly, the Revenue Service had adopted the decision made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
They would not move the coins. This was to completely block Mr. Fox's last excuse: that the money had left their sight and might have been switched.
Although this seemed somewhat foolish, it worked. After all, the order from above was to end the matter as quickly as possible, and speed was the most important thing.
The man slowly pulled open his lapel, revealing the identification card tucked near his pocket, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation badge. "Financial Crime Investigation Department Action Team. Mr. Fox, please sit down. I'm afraid you may not be able to stay on your feet after hearing what I'm about to say..."
In another room, three solemn-faced people wearing headsets listened. Besides those words, there was also faint noise coming through the headsets.
On the table in front of them, two recording devices were turning slowly...
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