OPINION OF THE COURT
REGALADO CUELLAR V. UNITED STATES
553 U. S. ____ (2008)
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
NO. 06-1456
HUMBERTO FIDEL REGALADO CUELLAR, PETITIONER
v. UNITED STATES
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the fifth circuit
[June 2, 2008]
Justice Thomas delivered the
opinion of the Court.
This case involves the provision
of the federal money laundering statute that prohibits
international transportation of the proceeds of unlawful activity.
Petitioner argues that his conviction cannot stand because, while
the evidence demonstrates that he took steps to hide illicit funds
en route to Mexico, it does not show that the cross-border
transport of those funds was designed to create the appearance of
legitimate wealth. Although we agree with the Government that the
statute does not require proof that the defendant attempted to
“legitimize” tainted funds, we agree with petitioner that the
Government must demonstrate that the defendant did more than merely
hide the money during its transport. We therefore reverse the
judgment of the Fifth Circuit.
I
On July 14, 2004, petitioner
Humberto Fidel Regalado Cuellar was stopped in southern Texas for
driving errati-cally. Driving south toward the Mexican border,
about 114 miles away, petitioner had just passed the town of
Eldorado. In response to the officer’s questions, petitioner, who
spoke no English, handed the officer a stack of papers. Included
were bus tickets showing travel from a Texas border town to San
Antonio on July 13 and, in the other direction, from San Antonio to
Big Spring, Texas, on July 14. A Spanish-speaking officer, Trooper
Danny Nuńez, was called to the scene and began
questioning petitioner. Trooper Nuńez soon became
suspicious because petitioner was avoiding eye contact and seemed
very nervous. Petitioner claimed to be on a 3-day business trip,
but he had no luggage or extra clothing with him, and he gave
conflicting accounts of his itinerary. When Trooper
Nuńez asked petitioner about a bulge in his shirt
pocket, petitioner produced a wad of cash that smelled of
marijuana.
Petitioner consented to a search
of the Volkswagen Beetle that he was driving. While the officers
were searching the vehicle, Trooper Nuńez observed
petitioner standing on the side of the road making the sign of the
cross, which he interpreted to mean that petitioner knew he was in
trouble. A drug detection dog alerted on the cash from petitioner’s
shirt pocket and on the rear area of the car. Further scrutiny
uncovered a secret compartment under the rear floorboard, and
inside the compartment the officers found approximately $81,000 in
cash. The money was bundled in plastic bags and duct tape, and
animal hair was spread in the rear of the vehicle. Petitioner
claimed that he had previously transported goats in the vehicle,
but Trooper Nuńez doubted that goats could fit in such a
small space and suspected that the hair had been spread in an
attempt to mask the smell of marijuana.
There were signs that the compartment had been
recently created and that someone had attempted to cover up the
bodywork: The Beetle’s carpeting appeared newer than the rest of
the interior, and the exterior of the vehicle appeared to have been
purposely splashed with mud to cover up toolmarks, fresh paint, or
other work. In the backseat, officers found a fast-food restaurant
receipt dated the same day from a city farther north than
petitioner claimed to have traveled. After a check of petitioner’s
last border crossing also proved inconsistent with his story,
petitioner was arrested and interrogated. He continued to tell
conflicting stories about his travels. At one point, before he knew
that the officers had found the cash, he remarked to Trooper
Nuńez that he had to have the car in Mexico by midnight
or else his family would be “floating down the river.” App. 50.
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). After a
2-day trial, the jury found petitioner guilty. The District Court
denied petitioner’s motion for judgment of acquittal based on
insufficient evidence and sentenced petitioner to 78 months in
prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
On appeal, a divided panel of the Fifth
Circuit reversed and rendered a judgment of acquittal. 441
F. 3d 329 (2006). Judge Smith’s majority opinion held that,
although the evidence showed that petitioner concealed the money
for the purpose of transporting it, the statute requires that the
purpose of the transportation itself must be to conceal or disguise
the unlawful proceeds.
Id., at 333–334. Analogizing from
cases interpreting another provision of the money laundering
statute, the court held that the transportation must be undertaken
in an attempt to create the appearance of legitimate
wealth.[
Footnote 1] See
id., at 334. Although the evidence showed intent to avoid
detection while driving the funds to Mexico, it did not show that
petitioner intended to create the appearance of legitimate wealth,
and accordingly no rational trier of fact could have found
petitioner guilty.
Ibid. Judge Davis dissented, arguing
that concealment during transportation is sufficient to violate
§1956(a)(2)(B)(i).
Id., at 334–336.
The Fifth Circuit granted rehearing en banc
and affirmed petitioner’s conviction. 478 F. 3d 282 (2007).
The court rejected as inconsistent with the statutory text
petitioner’s argument that the Government must prove that he
attempted to create the appearance of legitimate wealth.
Id., at 290. But it held that petitioner’s extensive
efforts to prevent detection of the funds during transportation
showed that petitioner sought to conceal or disguise the nature,
location, and source, ownership, or control of the funds.
Id., at 289–290. Judge Smith dissented for largely the
same reasons set forth in his opinion for the original panel
majority. He emphasized the distinction between “concealing
something to transport it, and transporting something to conceal
it,” and explained that whether petitioner was doing the latter
depended on whether his ultimate plan upon reaching his destination
was to conceal the nature, location, source, ownership, or control
of the money.
Id., at 296–297.
We granted certiorari, 552 U. S. ___
(2007).
II
The federal money laundering
statute, 18 U. S. C. §1956, prohibits specified transfers of
money derived from unlawful activities. Subsection (a)(1) makes it
unlawful to engage in certain financial transactions, while
subsection (a)(2) criminalizes certain kinds of transportation.
Petitioner was charged under the transportation provision: The
indictment alleged that he attempted to transport illicit proceeds
across the Mexican border “knowing that such transportation was
designed in whole or in part to conceal and disguise the nature,
location, source, ownership, and control” of the funds.[
Footnote 2] App. 10–11 (citing
§1956(a)(2)(B)(i)).
A
We first consider the “designed …
to conceal” element. Petitioner argues that to satisfy this
element, the Government must prove that the defendant attempted to
create the appearance of legitimate wealth. Petitioner would
replace “designed … to conceal or disguise the nature, the
location, the source, the ownership, or the control of the
proceeds” with “designed to create the appearance of legitimate
wealth.” §1956(a)(2)(B)(i). This is consistent with the plain
meaning of “money laundering,” petitioner argues, because that term
is commonly understood to mean disguising illegally obtained money
in order to make it appear legitimate. In petitioner’s view, this
common understanding of “money laundering” is implicit in both the
transaction and transportation provisions of the statute because
concealing or disguising any of the listed attributes would
necessarily have the effect of making the funds appear legitimate,
and, conversely, revealing any such attribute would necessarily
reveal the funds as illicit. The Government disagrees, contending
that making funds appear legitimate is merely one way to accomplish
money laundering, and that revealing a listed attribute would not
necessarily reveal the funds’ illicit nature. In any event, the
Government argues, the statute should not be cabined to target only
classic money laundering because Congress intended to reach any
conduct that impairs the ability of law enforcement to find and
recover the unlawful proceeds.
We agree with petitioner that
taking steps to make funds appear legitimate is the common meaning
of the term “money laundering.” See American Heritage Dictionary
992 (4th ed. 2000) (hereinafter Am. Hert.) (defining “launder” as
“[t]o disguise the source or nature of (illegal funds, for example)
by channeling through an intermediate agent”); Black’s Law
Dictionary 1027 (8th ed. 2004) (hereinafter Black’s) (defining
“money-laundering” to mean “[t]he act of transferring illegally
obtained money through legitimate people or accounts so that its
original source cannot be traced”). But to the extent they are
inconsistent, we must be guided by the words of the operative
statutory provision, and not by the common meaning of the statute’s
title. See
Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections v.
Yeskey,
524
U. S. 206, 212 (1998) (declining to use a statute’s title to
limit the meaning of the text). Here, Congress used broad language
that captures more than classic money laundering: In addition to
concealing or disguising the nature or source of illegal funds,
Congress also sought to reach transportation designed to conceal or
disguise the location, ownership, or control of the funds. For
example, a defendant who smuggles cash into Mexico with the intent
of hiding it from authorities by burying it in the desert may have
engaged in transportation designed to conceal the location of those
funds, but his conduct would not necessarily have the effect of
making the funds appear legitimate.
Nor do we find persuasive petitioner’s attempt
to infuse a “classic money laundering” requirement into the listed
attributes. Contrary to petitioner’s argument, revealing those
attributes—nature, location, source, ownership, or control—would
not necessarily expose the illegitimacy of the funds. Digging up
the cash buried in the Mexican desert, for example, would not
necessarily reveal that it was derived from unlawful activity.
Indeed, of all the listed attributes, only “nature” is coextensive
with the funds’ illegitimate character: Exposing the nature of
illicit funds would, by definition, reveal them as unlawful
proceeds. But nature is only one attribute in the statute; that it
may be coextensive with the creation of the appearance of
legitimate wealth does not mean that Congress intended that
requirement to swallow the other listed attributes.
We likewise are skeptical of petitioner’s
argument that violating the elements of the statute would
necessarily have the effect of making the funds appear more
legitimate than they did before. It is true that concealing or
disguising any one of the listed attributes may have the effect of
making the funds appear more legitimate—largely because concealing
or disguising those attributes might impede law enforcement’s
ability to identify illegitimate funds—but we are not convinced
that this is necessarily so. It might be possible for a defendant
to conceal or disguise a listed attribute without also creating the
appearance of legitimate wealth. Cf.
United States v.
Abbell, 271 F. 3d 1286, 1298 (CA11 2001) (noting that
the transaction provision, although designed to punish those who
“attemp[t] to legitimize their proceeds,” may be satisfied without
proof that a particular defendant did so). Petitioner’s “appearance
of legitimate wealth” requirement simply has no basis in the
operative provision’s text.
Petitioner argues that the money laundering
transportation provision must be aimed at something other than
merely secretive transportation of illicit funds because that
conduct is already punished by the bulk cash smuggling statute, 31
U. S. C. §5332 (2000 ed., Supp. V). We disagree. A comparison
of the statutory language reveals that, even if no “appearance of
legitimate wealth” requirement exists in 18 U. S. C.
§1956(a)(2)(B)(i), the two statutes nonetheless target distinct
conduct. The bulk cash smuggling provision encompasses, in relevant
part, a defendant who,
“with the intent to evade a currency reporting
requirement under section 5316, knowingly conceals more than
$10,000 in currency or other monetary instruments . . . and
transports or transfers or attempts to transport or transfer such
currency or monetary instruments from a place within the United
States to a place outside of the United States.” 31 U. S. C.
§5332(a)(1).
To be sure, certain conduct may fall within both
statutes. For example, both provisions may be violated by a
defendant who intends to evade a relevant reporting requirement.
See §5332(a)(1) (transportation of funds “with the intent to evade
a currency reporting requirement”); 18 U. S. C.
§1956(a)(2)(B)(ii) (transportation of funds knowing that it is
designed “to avoid a transaction reporting requirement”). But only
the money laundering statute may be violated in the absence of such
intent. See §1956(a)(2)(B)(i) (prohibiting transportation of
illicit funds knowing that the transportation is designed to
conceal or disguise a listed attribute). Similarly, although both
statutes encompass transportation of illicit funds, only the bulk
cash smuggling statute also punishes the mere transportation of
lawfully derived proceeds.[
Footnote
3] Compare 31 U. S. C. §5332(a) (omitting any requirement
that the funds be unlawfully derived) with 18 U. S. C.
§1956(a)(2)(B) (requiring that the defendant “kno[w] that the
monetary instrument or funds involved in the transportation …
represent the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity”).
B
Having concluded that the statute
contains no “appearance of legitimate wealth” requirement, we next
consider whether the evidence that petitioner concealed the money
during transportation is sufficient to sustain his conviction. As
noted, petitioner was convicted under §1956(a)(2)(B)(i), which, in
relevant part, makes it a crime to attempt to transport “funds from
a place in the United States to … a place outside the United States
… knowing that the … funds involved in the transportation …
represent the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity and
knowing that such transportation … is designed in whole or in part
… to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the
ownership, or the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful
activity.” Accordingly, the Government was required in this case to
prove that petitioner (1) attempted to transport funds from
the United States to Mexico, (2) knew that these funds
“represent[ed] the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity,”
e.g., drug trafficking, and (3) knew that “such
transportation” was designed to “conceal or disguise the nature,
the location, the source, the ownership, or the control” of the
funds.
It is the last of these that is at issue
before us, viz., whether petitioner knew that “such transportation”
was designed to conceal or disguise the specified attributes of the
illegally obtained funds. In this connection, it is important to
keep in mind that the critical transportation was not the
transportation of the funds within this country on the way to the
border. Instead, the term “such transportation” means
transportation “from a place in the United States to … a place
outside the United States”—here, from the United States to Mexico.
Therefore, what the Government had to prove was that petitioner
knew that taking the funds to Mexico was “designed,” at least in
part, to conceal or disguise their “nature,” “location,” “source,”
“ownership,” or “control.”
Petitioner argues that the evidence is not
sufficient to sustain his conviction because concealing or
disguising a listed attribute of the funds during transportation
cannot satisfy the “designed … to conceal” element. Citing cases
that interpret the identical phrase in the transaction provision to
exclude “mere spending,”[
Footnote
4] petitioner argues that the transportation provision must
exclude “mere hiding.” Otherwise, petitioner contends, all
cross-border transport of illicit funds would fall under the
statute because people regularly make minimal efforts to conceal
money, such as placing it inside a wallet or other receptacle, in
order to secure it during travel. The Government responds that
concealment during transportation is sufficient to satisfy this
element because it is circumstantial evidence that the ultimate
purpose of the transportation—
i.e., its “design”—is to
conceal or disguise a listed attribute of the funds. This standard
would not criminalize all cross-border transport of illicit funds,
the Government argues, because, just as in the transaction
cases,[
Footnote 5] the statute
encompasses only
substantial efforts at concealment. As a
result, the Government agrees with the Court of Appeals that a
violation of the transportation provision cannot be established
solely by evidence that the defendant carried money in a wallet or
concealed it in some other conventional or incidental way. See 478
F. 3d, at 291 (characterizing the defendant’s transportation
of money in a box in
United States v.
Dimeck, 24
F. 3d 1239, 1246 (CA10 1994), as a “minimal attempt at
concealment” that is distinguishable from petitioner’s “effort to
hide or conceal” the funds).
We agree with petitioner that
merely hiding funds during transportation is not sufficient to
violate the statute, even if substantial efforts have been expended
to conceal the money. Our conclusion turns on the text of
§1956(a)(2)(B)(i), and particularly on the term “design.” In this
context, “design” means purpose or plan;
i.e., the
intended aim of the transportation. See Am. Hert. 491 (“To
formulate a plan for; devise”; “[t]o create or contrive for a
particular purpose or effect”); Black’s 478 (“A plan or scheme”;
“[p]urpose or intention combined with a plan”); see also Brief for
United States 14 (“ ‘to conceive and plan out in the
mind’ ” (quoting Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
611 (1993)). Congress wrote “knowing that such transportation is
designed … to conceal or disguise” a listed attribute of the funds,
§1956(a)(2)(B)(i), and when an act is “designed to” do something,
the most natural reading is that it has that something as its
purpose. The Fifth Circuit employed this meaning of design when it
referred to the “transportation design or plan to get the funds out
of this country.” See 478 F. 3d, at 289.
But the Fifth Circuit went on to discuss the
“design” of the transportation in a different sense. It described
the packaging of the money, its placement in the hidden
compartment, and the use of animal hair to mask its scent as
“
aspects of the transportation” that “were designed to
conceal or disguise” the nature and location of the cash.
Ibid. (emphasis added). Because the Fifth Circuit used
“design” to refer not to the purpose of the transportation but to
the manner in which it was carried out, its use of the term in this
context was consistent with the alternate meaning of “design” as
structure or arrangement. See Am. Hert. 491, 492 (“To plan out in
systematic, usually graphic form”; “[t]he purposeful or inventive
arrangement of parts or details”); Black’s 478 (“The pattern or
configuration of elements in something, such as a work of art”).
The Government at times also appears to adopt this meaning of
“design.” See Brief for United States 21 (“Congress focused on how
the transportation itself was ‘designed’ ”);
id., at
43 (arguing that petitioner’s design to move funds without
detection is proof of a design to conceal or disguise the location
and nature of the funds).[
Footnote
6] If the statutory term had this meaning, it would apply
whenever a person transported illicit funds in a secretive manner.
Judge Smith supplied an example of this construction: A petty thief
who hides money in his shoe and then walks across the border to
spend the money in local bars, see 478 F. 3d, at 301 (dissenting
opinion), has engaged in transportation designed to conceal the
location of the money because he has hidden it in an unlikely
place.
We think it implausible, however, that
Congress intended this meaning of “design.” If it had, it could
have expressed its intention simply by writing “knowing that such
transportation conceals or disguises,” rather than the more complex
formulation “knowing that such transportation … is designed … to
conceal or disguise.” §1956(a)(2)(B)(i). It seems far more likely
that Congress intended courts to apply the familiar criminal law
concepts of purpose and intent than to focus exclusively on how a
defendant “structured” the transportation. In addition, the
structural meaning of “design” is both overinclusive and
underinclusive: It would capture individuals who structured
transportation in a secretive way but lacked any criminal intent
(such as a person who hid illicit funds
en route to turn
them over to law enforcement); yet it would exclude individuals who
fully intended to move the funds in order to impede detection by
law enforcement but failed to hide them during the
transportation.
To be sure, purpose and structure are often
related. One may employ structure to achieve a purpose: For
example, the petty thief may hide money in his shoe to prevent it
from being detected as he crosses the border with the intent to
hide the money in Mexico. See 478 F. 3d, at 301 (Smith, J.,
dissenting). Although transporting money in a conventional manner
may suggest no particular purpose other than simply to move it from
one place to another, secretively transporting it suggests, at
least, that the defendant did not want the money to be detected
during transport. In this case, evidence of the methods petitioner
used to transport the nearly $81,000 in cash—bundled in plastic
bags and hidden in a secret compartment covered with animal
hair—was plainly probative of an underlying goal to prevent the
funds from being detected while he drove them from the United
States to Mexico. The same secretive aspects of the transportation
also may be circumstantial evidence that the transportation itself
was intended to avoid detection of the funds, because, for example,
they may suggest that the transportation is only one step in a
larger plan to facilitate the cross-border transport of the funds.
Cf.
id., at 289 (noting that “concealment of the funds
during the U. S. leg of the trip [was] a vital part of the
transportation design or plan to get the funds out of this
country”). But its probative force, in that context, is weak.
“There is a difference between concealing something to transport
it, and transporting something to conceal it,”
id., at
296–297 (Smith, J., dissenting); that is,
how one moves
the money is distinct from
why one moves the money.
Evidence of the former, standing alone, is not sufficient to prove
the latter.
This case illustrates why: Even with abundant
evidence that petitioner had concealed the money in order to
transport it, the Government’s own expert witness—ICE Agent Richard
Nuckles—testified that the purpose of the transportation was to
compensate the leaders of the operation.[
Footnote 7] Tr. 179 (Oct. 12, 2004), App. 64–65 (“[T]he
bulk of [the money] generally goes back to Mexico, because the
smuggler is the one who originated this entire process. He’s going
to get a large cut of the profit, and that money has to be moved
back to him in Mexico”). The evidence suggested that the secretive
aspects of the transportation were employed to
facilitate
the transportation, see 478 F. 3d, at 289 (noting that
“concealment of the funds during the U. S. leg of the trip [was] a
vital part of the transportation design or plan”), but not
necessarily that secrecy was the
purpose of the
transportation. Agent Nuckles testified that the secretive manner
of transportation was consistent with drug smuggling, see Tr.
179–180, App. 65–66, but the Government failed to introduce any
evidence that the reason drug smugglers move money to Mexico is to
conceal or disguise a listed attribute of the funds.
Agent Nuckles also testified that
Acuna, the Mexican border town to which petitioner was headed, has
a cash economy and that U. S. currency is widely accepted there.
See Tr. 188–189, App. 69. The Fifth Circuit apparently viewed this
as evidence that petitioner transported the money in order to
conceal or disguise it: “[G]iven Mexico’s largely cash economy, if
[petitioner] had successfully transported the funds to Mexico
without detection, the jury was entitled to find that the funds
would have been better concealed or concealable after the
transportation than before.” 478 F. 3d, at 292. The statutory
text makes clear, however, that a conviction under this provision
requires proof that the purpose—not merely effect—of the
transportation was to conceal or disguise a listed attribute.
Although the evidence suggested that petitioner’s transportation
would have had the effect of concealing the funds, the evidence did
not demonstrate that such concealment was the purpose of the
transportation because, for instance, there was no evidence that
petitioner knew about or intended the effect.[
Footnote 8]
In sum, we conclude that the
evidence introduced by the Government was not sufficient to permit
a reasonable jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that
petitioner’s transportation was “designed in whole or in part … to
conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the
ownership, or the control of the proceeds.” §1956(a)(2)(B)(i).
III
The provision of the money
laundering statute under which petitioner was convicted requires
proof that the transportation was “designed in whole or in part to
conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the
ownership, or the control” of the funds. §1956(a)(2)(B)(i).
Although this element does not require proof that the defendant
attempted to create the appearance of legitimate wealth, neither
can it be satisfied solely by evidence that a defendant concealed
the funds during their transport. In this case, the only evidence
introduced to prove this element showed that petitioner engaged in
extensive efforts to conceal the funds
en route to Mexico,
and thus his conviction cannot stand. We reverse the judgment of
the Fifth Circuit.
It is so ordered.
Footnote 1
Several Courts of Appeals
have considered this requirement as relevant, or even necessary, in
the context of 18 U. S. C. §1956(a)(1)(B)(i), which prohibits,
inter alia, engaging in financial transactions
“involv[ing] the proceeds of specified unlawful activity . . .
knowing that the transaction is designed in whole or in part . . .
to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the
ownership, or the control of the proceeds of some specified
unlawful activity.” See
United States v.
Morales-Rodriguez, 467 F. 3d 1, 13 (CA1 2006);
United States v.
Esterman, 324 F. 3d 565,
572–573 (CA7 2003);
United States v.
Abbell, 271
F. 3d 1286, 1298 (CA11 2001);
United States v.
McGahee, 257 F. 3d 520, 527–528 (CA6 2001);
United States v.
Dobbs, 63 F. 3d
391, 397 (CA5 1995);
United States v.
Dimeck, 24
F. 3d 1239, 1247 (CA10 1994).
In construing the provision under which
petitioner was convicted, four Courts of Appeals, including the
Fifth Circuit, have implicitly or explicitly rejected the
requirement. See
United States v.
Garcia-Jaimes,
484 F. 3d 1311, 1322 (CA11 2007) (upholding convictions for
conspiracy to commit transportation money laundering without
addressing the requirement);
United States v.
Ness, 466 F. 3d 79, 81–82 (CA2 2006) (rejecting the
requirement and upholding a conviction for conspiracy to violate
the transportation provision where defendant’s conduct was
elaborate and highly secretive);
United States v.
Carr, 25 F. 3d 1194, 1206–1207 (CA3 1994) (upholding
a conviction under the transportation provision without discussing
the requirement).
Footnote 2
Subsection (a)(2) reads, in
its entirety:
“Whoever transports, transmits, or transfers, or attempts to
transport, transmit, or transfer a monetary instrument or funds
from a place in the United States to or through a place outside the
United States or to a place in the United States from or through a
place outside the United States—
“(A) with the intent to promote the carrying
on of specified unlawful activity; or
“(B) knowing that the monetary instrument or
funds involved in the transportation, transmission, or transfer
represent the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity and
knowing that such transportation, transmission, or transfer is
designed in whole or in part—
“(i) to conceal or disguise the nature, the
location, the source, the ownership, or the control of the proceeds
of specified unlawful activity; or
“(ii) to avoid a transaction reporting
requirement under State or Federal law,
“shall be sentenced to a fine of not more than $500,000 or twice
the value of the monetary instrument or funds involved in the
transportation, transmission, or transfer whichever is greater, or
imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both. For the
purpose of the offense described in subparagraph (B), the
defendant’s knowledge may be established by proof that a law
enforcement officer represented the matter specified in
subparagraph (B) as true, and the defendant’s subsequent statements
or actions indicate that the defendant believed such
representations to be true.”
Footnote 3
Section 1956(a)(2)(A) also
punishes the mere transportation of lawfully derived proceeds, but
it imposes the additional requirement, not found in 31 U.
S. C. §5332 (2000 ed., Supp. V), that the defendant must have
“inten[ded] to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful
activity.”
Footnote 4
See,
e.g.,
Esterman, 324 F. 3d, at 570–572;
United States
v.
Corchado-Peralta, 318 F. 3d 255, 259 (CA1 2003);
McGahee, 257 F. 3d, at 527;
United States v.
Herron, 97 F. 3d 234, 237 (CA8 1996);
United
States v.
Majors, 196 F. 3d 1206, 1213 (CA11
1999);
United States v.
Stephenson, 183
F. 3d 110, 120–121 (CA2 1999);
Dobbs, 63 F. 3d,
at 398;
United States v.
Garcia-Emanuel, 14
F. 3d 1469, 1474 (CA10 1994).
Footnote 5
See,
e.g.,
Ness, 466 F. 3d, at 81 (concluding that extensive
attempts at secrecy were sufficient to support a conviction under
18 U. S. C. §1956(a)(1), but “express[ing] no view” as to
whether transactions involving “less elaborate stratagems or a
lesser measure of secrecy” would be sufficient);
United
States v.
Johnson, 440 F. 3d 1286, 1291 (CA11
2006) (“Evidence of concealment must be substantial”);
Dimeck, 24 F. 3d, at 1247 (“The transportation of the
money from Detroit to California in a box, suitcase, or other
container does not convert the mere transportation of money into
money laundering”).
Footnote 6
This understanding of
“design” is also implicit in some of the Government’s statements
that secretive transportation is sufficient to prove a violation of
the statute. See Brief for United States 46 (arguing that the
statute covers any “surreptitiou[s]” movement of funds “to a
location where United States law enforcement authorities are
impaired from detecting and intercepting them,” apparently
regardless of whether such impairment was the purpose of the plan);
id., at 11 (“When a defendant surreptitiously transports
or attempts to transport illegal proceeds across the border knowing
of their illegal character, money laundering is the appropriate
charge”);
id., at 13 (“The statute explicitly covers, and
was intended to cover, a wide range of conduct that impairs the
ability of law enforcement to find and recover the proceeds of
crime”); Tr. of Oral Arg. 46. Agent Richard Nuckles, Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE), appears to have adopted this
standard at trial as well. See Tr. 196 (Oct. 12, 2004) (testifying
that attempting to move funds across the border without detection
would be illegal, apparently regardless of the reason for doing
so).
Footnote 7
Concealing or disguising a listed attribute
need be only one of the purposes of the transportation. See
§1956(a)(2)(B)(i) (providing that a transportation plan need be
designed “in whole or in part” to conceal or disguise). But here,
compensating the leaders of the operation was the only purpose to
which Agent Nuckles testified.
Footnote 8
In many cases, a criminal defendant’s
knowledge or purpose is not established by direct evidence but
instead is shown circumstantially based on inferences drawn from
evidence of effect. See,
e.g., 1 W. LaFave, Substantive
Criminal Law §5.2(a), p. 341 (2d ed. 2003). Specifically, where the
consequences of an action are commonly known, a trier of fact will
often infer that the person taking the action knew what the
consequences would be and acted with the purpose of bringing them
about. Although, as noted above, the Government introduced some
evidence regarding the effect of transporting illegally obtained
money to Mexico, the Government has not pointed to any evidence in
the record from which it could be inferred beyond a reasonable
doubt that petitioner knew that taking the funds to Mexico would
have had one of the relevant effects.
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