Money laundering, like drugs, starts in larger amounts and is broken down further down the chain it goes.

Those $5 and $10 bills getting laundered started from a $50K transaction getting laundered.

Right but you don’t make a large “payment”. You break down the large sun into a smaller one outside the system. When it enters the legal system, the amount is smaller. Unless of course, you use banks.

Not always. A popular step is to buy an expensive car in Germany using cash, then bring it to another country. Germany is central to many money laundering schemes because of the prevalence of cash payments there.