I just got back from running a game of SR4 and the Magician of the group decided that she was going to use Control Thoughts to give a NPC the command to transfer all his Nuyen over to her before they killed him. The NPC is a Yakuza underboss, and would probably have alot of money able to be transfered so I am very hesitant about letting her do this. I'm just wondering if there are any messures (in the 2070 banking system/Control Thoughts rules) in place to stop this sort of thing from happening?

With currency being almost completly electronic, what is stopping a Magician walking the street from randomly Mind Controlling people and getting them to transfer money. The NPC would probably have no recollection of ever transfering the money. NPCs that were left intact may be able to trace where they transfered there Nuyen too, but this still leaves a major problem if the NPC is killed. Your thoughts?

1. What the fuck is a Yakuza boss doing at the magical mercy of Shadowrunners? Why did his bodyguards not slice the fuck on the mage the instant the insolant brat dared to cast a single spell?

2. The Yaluza boss is certainly rich, but his money is probably not all that liquid. It is tied up in investments, (illegal) projects, real estate, etc.

3. For large money transfers, the Yakuza's accountant or banker will certainly notice right away, and the money may well be tagged in escrow or something. Direct transfer, just like that, is unlikely. I mean, you're asking about Shadowrunners now, but it's credible that the boss would be worried that some sort of betrayal or other unpleasant situation may occur where his enemies would ask him at gun point to "transfer all his money". Doubtful he hasn't made preperations for it.

4. To answer your wider question, people that got Thought Controlled WOULD realise what happened to them some time after the fact, and go to the police. Happens once or twice, no big deal. But if this starts systematically happenning, the cops are going to take notice. Witnesses will be interviewd, camera footage reviewed, etc.

5. Money transfers leave VERY traceable e-trails. FROM account and TO account are clearly identified. I call that a problem.

[edit]once again: what he said[/edit]

Transfers take time, the subject get's to roll versus the spell like every nano second. Also, if you don't want to dice choke your game, teach the player a lesson in consequences. The underboss guy should have influence and "friends" who will wonder who killed him and maybe even wonder where all the money they planned to steal from him went. The trail of money will lead to a lot of pain for someone who thought he is smart(er).
Yakuza hackers are pretty good, btw, so, yeah, no matter what the players can come up with to cover their tracks, you can reasonably say the Yaks figured it out anyways.

Usually security is what stops magicians from fucking up the world. Also, most magicians have small dicepools not even remotly near what a runner mage will be tossing, so they would fail really good if the tried to mind-steal stuff. I'm sure there are more reasons, but those work for me most of the time.

Yep, this will be the biggest problem.

Electronic money is tractable, otherwise it would be a lot easier to make fake e-money.

So, you can't get somebody to transfer the money, or even do a simple mugging without consequences.

If a dead body shows up, the first thing the star are going to do (if they care about another corpse) is track last contacts in his commlink, and track any money that went anywhere near the victim anytime near the time of his death.

You can't even just make him go buy you a new gun/shirt/tie/anything, because they will all be filled with tags, which will be linked backwards to the crime, and next time you walk past a sensor with that new tie you brought with the dead guys cash, you are going to be flagged on the system.

Also makes mugging a lot harder as well, because even if you do it sneaky, drugs, or just a matrix robbery, unless it is a trival amount of cash, they are sooner or latter notice they have less, or have unexplained transactions on their account, and it will be tracked backwards.

If a character wants to do this, they had better have a very high level contact who knows how to actually launder electronic money into cert. cred sticks etc.

QFT. Mind control spells "wear off" rather quickly, so if the transfer process takes more than a few seconds, the victim will almost certainly break free.