alt Hacker NewsThe Bafin (german banking regulator) seems to want to restrict that freedom. I have worked for a company where the business model is related to cash and the Bafin tries to find reasons to make it harder every couple of years, stating that the money could come from anywhere and because people are not fully KYCed (as it is only legally required for payments of 1000 EUR or more within 24h) there is no way to know. The business model is legal, but they can also make it harder to operate by putting more pressure and scrutiny to banks the company worked with.
It's not so much that only criminals use cash, it's more that crash makes it incredibly easy to evade taxes. The archetype is a cash-only restaurant: it's trivial to both launder money by claiming more sales than you actually made and to evade taxes by reporting fewer sales. This is why many countries have strict laws about paper trails for cash sales.