How Tide Detergent Became a Drug Currency
Tide as a poor man's bitcoin.<p>TL;DR version - Laundry Detergent is pretty fungible, everyone needs it, and its difficult to trace, unscrupulous retailers will buy stolen tide for cash.<p>This situation provides crooks with a couple of benefits, one they can separate the money trail for selling drugs, after all who thinks this looks like a drug buy:<p><pre><code>   Alice goes to grocery gets laundry detergent;
   Bob sells stolen detergent to a grocery for cash.
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No way to connect Bob and Alice until you add:<p><pre><code>   Alice goes to grocery gets laundry detergent;
   Alice gives Detergent to Bob for drugs.
   Bob sells stolen detergent to a grocery for cash.
</code></pre>
Now you can connect them and see the drug deal. Hard to get a warrant to search Bob's car for laundry detergent.