The country is small:
It’s less than 10 000 sq km in area, has fewer than 1 million people, and GDP less than about US$50 billion. It might have a coast. It’s a liberal democracy, or at least mostly a liberal democracy. It’s been independent for almost 100 years, attempts a strong neutrality, and is thus generally non-aligned.
I suppose the country’s currency is hard, or reasonably hard, enough that it can be freely exchanged.
In this country you can bring a gym bag with US$1 million (say 10 000 $100 bills) in or out of the country. There are banks there which you can deposit the money, and while they might be required to report this to the government, the government won’t tell the governments or other international organizations about it.
What would be the consequences for such in international relations?
Thank you.
Edit (probably over 20 minutes after posting):
However, I should have added, that this generally occurred between 1998 and 2004.
Just hand wave away the “how,” if your story is about the person rather than about the laundering techniques. Just say that he has been laundering money and finally built up enough legitimate-seeming wealth that he can hold overseas.
Not every story needs to have an Andy Weir style explanation of the nuts and bolts of how each step progresses. Unless that’s what you want to do, in which case you better start consulting people who really know this stuff.
Good point, however I suppose I’m writing 2 versions of the story, with 2 descriptions:
the first is for me, where I figure out, if not everything, then nearly everything, in the story; so if someone asks, “what about this?” I can answer it. It also helps with my imagining the the story as I write it.
the next is for readers, or possible readers, who get a more abbreviated versions.
Though there is the possibility that a reviewer, instead of giving me a hard time over the impossibilities, might come up with real world examples, or examples-of-sorts, of elements of my story.