Suitcases of cash and/or gold have worked for even more ambitious goals
One must take cash out of a bank and then carry the suitcase to the other guy, meeting him in person and in private. Seems easy and safe to you?
Here, a few years ago, a State governor and a couple of Congressmen lost their posts and faced criminal charges because they were recorded by hidden cameras receiving packets of cash with the equivalent of 50'000--100'000 dollars. Another one was caught boarding a plane with a large sum stuffed in his underwear.
you can just fucking send a letter with a private key if you really really don't understand what Blockchain taint means.
I don't understand. If A puts the coins into some address X and sends its private key to B, the path on the blockchain just gets reduced to one node X and zero edges. With the exchange deposit and withdrawal logs, the two links from A's bank account to the coins on X and the two links from there to B's bank account can be traced. What am I missing here?
You are very deluded if you believe bribe money passes through the personal bank accounts of those involved. The US officials you gave as example are simply retarded and/or set up and/or part of a PR campaign. You are also deluded if you believe fraud and loopholes are kept under control in China. They're not even kept under control in the "civilized world".
Finally, if someone were to use BTC for bribe money, be certain the transfer would be thoroughly sterilized through a bunch of exchanges and other BTC hygiene services worldwide. Do you seriously believe there is any way to stop or detect this? For all I know there already exists a BTC laundromat for oligarchs.