That’s the point of criminalizing all options

Or just avoiding an easy conviction under tax evasion laws?

not paying taxes on illicit activities = tax evasion and likely discovery of illicit activity in criminal investigation = FAIL

money laundering = illegal if the government has determined the source is illicit = FAIL

those are the options and deterrents.

if you money launder with proper obfuscation, you wind up with money that you do pay taxes on and will never trigger an investigation.

But they also were trying to bust him for evasion because he declared zero income and lived a visibly lavish lifestyle. The government was gathering evidence on his spending to estimate his income and how much he evaded.

You can't sustainably solve that problem by simply paying lots of tax on magic illegal money, especially not in today's interconnected world. Laundering is core to the solution.