The criminal laughed when I said the same thing to him. His response was "You're just an analyst behind a computer, I moved weight. Paypal was a godsend. Cash was painful."

Go hit the street, talk to ex-cons and white collar criminals, your view is simplistic and lacks depth of on the ground reality.

But then you're talking to people who got caught. Of course PayPal makes it easier to handle money, but it also leaves a big paper trail.

How is this a refutation of the notion that the ideal amount of crime is nonzero?

Perhaps his first sentence lacks depth, but his second one certainly doesn't.