Buying BTC is easy. Obscuring the trail is an official Hard Problem.
Suggest he "repays poker game debt", " hires to advise", "purchases art" his fiat to his IRL friends who pull it out as cash. Use the cash to buy no-KYC Bitcoin.
That's not untraceable at all, but it IS deniable, and that's all your friend has time for now.
#laundromat