My first true major plothole discovery of S1

Here it is...

Luthen should have just gouged Mon on artifacts.

Thats how the 400k should have been transferred. There's no logical reason for the wildly wealthy Mon Mothma to be making giant cash withdrawals and sneaking them to Luthen.

She should just overpay on the monk cudgel.

Luthen has countless ways to make that money disappear, whether it's claiming high dollar acquisitions as forgeries or less valuable than initially appraised, or falsified travel expenses etc.

Mon's not filing that tax deduction for charitable contributions as far as I can tell...