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Have you bought cannabis products through Eaze.com and been surprised that you could pay with a credit card? Well, it turns out that you weren't supposed to!
A German IT consultant, Ruben Weigand, and his assistant, set up the credit card payment system and made it work through US banking regulations by disguising cannabis purchases as " dog toys, carbonated drinks, diving gear, and other products unrelated to cannabis."
At an airport layover, Weigand and company were nipped off the plane by the feds and charged with bank fraud.
There are a number of defenses which lawyers for Weigand are offering: There were no actual victims in the scheme, the purchasers resided in legal states, and the only reason for the subterfuge was because Federal policies against cannabis business prevent banks from conducting certain levels of financial transactions with the cannabis industry, whether they want to or not. Lawyers are also claiming that the Rohrabacher Amendment prevents the Feds from interfering with state medical marijuana laws, which this arrest could be argued is doing.
That's all fine, but the bottom line is still that cannabis purchases were disguised as dog toys, pop, diving equipment, and other unrelated products. That in itself is a violation of banking regulation, no matter how noble your purpose. The defendants also allegedly set up fake offshore merchants and websites like "absolutsoda.com" and "happypuppybox.com." God knows what people thought if they stumbled upon these websites and actually tried to buy pop or a doggie bone.
Another payment processor, Wirecard, is being dragged into the charges, making this into an alleged bank-fraud conspiracy.
So far, the closest we have come to any kind of electronic payment options for cannabis products have been CBD transactions, which even at that are considered "high-risk merchant processing." We may never come out of the woods on this legal financial snare until cannabis gets rescheduled on the Controlled Substances Act.
For those of you wondering why banks are so uptight about this: They have to work under Federal law no matter what. Banks are very sensitive to matters of liability and insurance. It doesn't matter if the CEO of the bank is a stoner himself, the company still can't function in gray legal areas.
A German IT consultant, Ruben Weigand, and his assistant, set up the credit card payment system and made it work through US banking regulations by disguising cannabis purchases as " dog toys, carbonated drinks, diving gear, and other products unrelated to cannabis."
At an airport layover, Weigand and company were nipped off the plane by the feds and charged with bank fraud.
There are a number of defenses which lawyers for Weigand are offering: There were no actual victims in the scheme, the purchasers resided in legal states, and the only reason for the subterfuge was because Federal policies against cannabis business prevent banks from conducting certain levels of financial transactions with the cannabis industry, whether they want to or not. Lawyers are also claiming that the Rohrabacher Amendment prevents the Feds from interfering with state medical marijuana laws, which this arrest could be argued is doing.
That's all fine, but the bottom line is still that cannabis purchases were disguised as dog toys, pop, diving equipment, and other unrelated products. That in itself is a violation of banking regulation, no matter how noble your purpose. The defendants also allegedly set up fake offshore merchants and websites like "absolutsoda.com" and "happypuppybox.com." God knows what people thought if they stumbled upon these websites and actually tried to buy pop or a doggie bone.
Another payment processor, Wirecard, is being dragged into the charges, making this into an alleged bank-fraud conspiracy.
So far, the closest we have come to any kind of electronic payment options for cannabis products have been CBD transactions, which even at that are considered "high-risk merchant processing." We may never come out of the woods on this legal financial snare until cannabis gets rescheduled on the Controlled Substances Act.
For those of you wondering why banks are so uptight about this: They have to work under Federal law no matter what. Banks are very sensitive to matters of liability and insurance. It doesn't matter if the CEO of the bank is a stoner himself, the company still can't function in gray legal areas.
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