Strangers in a Strange Land

Recent pronouncements by both the Supreme Court and Congress have significantly expanded the reach and power of the federal money laundering statute. Although traditionally associated with drug dealing, the statute can reach and has reached any illegal activity that generates large sums of cash (eg, insider trading, fraud, embezzlement). These changes in the law afford the government greater flexibility in where it can bring money laundering cases, and make it easier for the government to obtain a conviction for conspiracy to commit money laundering. Rule 18 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure states that “[u]nless a statute of these rules permit otherwise, the government must prosecute an offense in a district where the offense was committed.”