Money Laundering: An Analysis of Federal Law

Money laundering is commonly understood as the process of cleansing the taint from the proceeds of crime. In federal criminal law, however, it is more. In the principal federal criminal money laundering statutes, 18 U.S.C. 1956 and 1957, and to varying degrees in several other federal criminal statutes, money laundering involved the flow of resources to and from several hundred other federal, state, and foreign crimes. Money laundering in some forms is severely punished, sometimes more severely than the underlying crime with which it is associated. The penalties frequently include not only long prison terms, but the confiscation of the property laundered, involved in the laundering, or traceable to the laundering. In this book, an overview of the elements and other legal attributes and consequences of a violation of Sections 1956 and 1957 are discussed, as are select related federal criminal statutes.