In the Courts

The Supreme Court recently issued two opinions interpreting federal money-laundering statutes in favor of the criminal defendants. Justice Thomas, writing for a unanimous Court in Cuellar v. United States, No. 06-1456, slip op. (U.S. June 2, 2008), available at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/ opinions/07pdf/06-1456.pdf, held that the government must show that a defendant did more than just conceal money during transport to support a conviction under 18 U.S.C. ' 1956(a)(2)(B)(i), which prohibits international transportation of proceeds from unlawful activity. The petitioner was charged with attempting to transport the proceeds of unlawful activity across the border, knowing that the transportation was designed 'to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control' of the money. 18 U.S.C. ' 1956(a)(2)(B)(i).

Cuellar was apprehended near the U.S-Mexico border with $81,000 in cash that a drug-detection dog found in a secret compartment of his vehicle. The Court's decision centered on whether the statute required the government to show that the concealment during transport was designed 'to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control' of the money. In reversing the en banc decision of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Court held that evidence of concealment of the funds during transport by itself was not sufficient to support Petitioner's conviction, because there was no evidence that the concealment when Cuellar was apprehended was designed 'to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control' of the money.