The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the unsealing of a superseding indictment charging Jennifer Shah and another person for conspiring to commit wire fraud and money laundering. Shah, described in promotional materials as having an “extravagant personality and sharp tongue,” is a star on the reality television series The
2016 Year End Review: Part Two
In part two of our review of the 2016 developments in Anti-Money Laundering (AML), the Bank Secrecy Act, (BSA), the criminal money laundering statutes, forfeiture, and related issues, we discuss four additional key topics:
- Federal banking regulators’ efforts to ease industry concerns about overly aggressive Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) enforcement and limit the
2016 Year End Review: Money Laundering Opinions of Note
The federal courts continued in 2016 to produce a stream of cases pertaining to money laundering. We focus on three below because they involve analysis of basic issues that frequently arise in money laundering litigation.
The first case tests the money laundering statute’s reach in prosecution of an alleged international fraud perpetrated primarily outside of the United States—an increasingly common fact pattern as cross-border cases proliferate and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutes more conduct occurring largely overseas. The other two cases involve defense victories that focus on critical issues of mental state: the question of specific intent under the BSA, and the question, under the money laundering statutes, of knowledge by a third party that a transaction involved proceeds of another person’s crime. The issue of third-party knowledge is often crucial in prosecutions of professionals.
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2016 Year in Review: Forfeiture
The field of forfeiture saw significant action in 2016. The IRS offered to return forfeited funds used in structuring, but Congress still may clip its ability to forfeit such funds. Meanwhile, DOJ renewed a controversial program that incentivizes local law enforcement to aggressively pursue forfeiture. It filed a major forfeiture action which reminds law firms of their own need to vet the source of funds flowing into firm bank accounts. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that “clean” funds cannot be restrained pretrial when a defendant needs those funds for his criminal defense, even if the government wants to restrain the money in order to pay for forfeiture or restitution if the defendant is convicted.
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