Number: RS22401
Title: Money Laundering: An Abridged Overview of 18 U.S.C. 1956 and Related Federal Criminal Law
Authors: Charles Doyle, American Law Division 
Abstract: Money laundering is a federal crime, most often prosecuted today under 18 U.S.C. 1956. Money laundering is commonly understood as the process of cleansing the taint from the proceeds of crime. In federal criminal law, it is more. In varying degrees under federal law, money laundering involves the flow of resources to and from several hundred other federal, state and foreign crimes. It consists of: (1) engaging in a financial transaction involving the proceeds of certain crimes in order to conceal the nature, source, or ownership of proceeds they produced; (2) transporting funds generated by certain criminal activities internationally in order to promote further criminal activities, or to conceal nature, source, or ownership of the criminal proceeds, or to evade reporting requirements; (3) engaging in a financial transaction involving the proceeds of certain crimes in order to promote further offenses; (4) engaging in a financial transaction involving criminal proceeds in order to evade taxes on the income produced by the illicit activity; (5) structuring financial transactions in order to evade reporting requirements; (6) spending more than $10,000 of the proceeds of certain criminal activities; (7) traveling in interstate or foreign commerce in order to distribute the proceeds of certain criminal activities; (8) transmitting the proceeds of criminal activity in the course of a money transmitting business; (9) smuggling unreported cash across a U.S. border, or (10) failing to comply with the Treasury Department's anti-money laundering provisions.
Pages: 6
Date: July 18, 2008