If some local car dealer wants to influence a players commitment, he'll do it with NIL. He can write it off, he gets some advertising benefit, and the player pays the taxes.
Maybe the "bags of cash" are still around because some "drug dealers" can't easily spend their millions otherwise. They need a car wash. But then they buy a car wash, pay the player via NIL, and suddenly their business jumps through the roof, a cash business.