Federal Money Laundering Defense

Money laundering charges often appear alongside another federal accusation. A fraud investigation may expand to include transfers among bank accounts, or prosecutors may allege that proceeds were moved through a business, shell company, cryptocurrency wallet, or another person’s account. Funds may be seized or frozen while investigators trace where money came from and where it went.

Moving money is not automatically money laundering. Federal statutes require the government to prove specific facts about the source of the property, the transaction, and the defendant’s knowledge or intent.

Bedi & Singer represents individuals in federal white-collar investigations and prosecutions involving financial fraud, conspiracy, and money-laundering allegations.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 1956, prosecutors may allege that a person knowingly conducted a financial transaction involving the proceeds of specified unlawful activity. The charge requires either an intent to promote further crime or evade taxes, or knowledge that the transaction was designed to conceal or disguise the proceeds or to avoid a reporting requirement. The statute also addresses specified international transfers and undercover transactions. A related statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1957, prohibits certain monetary transactions involving more than $10,000 in criminally derived property.

A bank transfer, cash withdrawal, purchase, or payment can be perfectly lawful. The government must connect the transaction to criminally derived property or another statutory theory and prove the knowledge or intent required for the offense charged.

Money laundering is frequently charged with an alleged underlying offense, sometimes called specified unlawful activity. That may include wire or mail fraud, health care fraud, bribery, public corruption, drug offenses, certain environmental crimes, FCPA violations, and many other federal offenses.

The defense may need to examine both whether the underlying crime occurred and whether the later transaction meets the separate elements of a money-laundering offense. That matters when prosecutors treat ordinary spending, transfers among related accounts, repayment of obligations, or movement of business funds as evidence of concealment or promotion.

Bank records, wire transfers, checks, corporate records, accounting entries, cryptocurrency transactions, text messages, emails, and account-opening documents may all be used to reconstruct the movement of funds. Investigators may also rely on cooperating witnesses to explain why transactions occurred. The defense may turn on questions like these:

• Was the property actually derived from unlawful activity?
• What did the client know about the source of the funds?
• Was a transaction designed to conceal ownership, source, location, or control?
• Did the transaction have a legitimate business or personal purpose?
• Did the client act at another person’s direction without the knowledge the government alleges?
• Have the financial records been interpreted accurately?
• Can statements, searches, seizures, or electronic evidence be challenged?

The government may seek to restrain or seize funds or property it contends are criminal proceeds, involved in laundering, or otherwise subject to forfeiture. That can create immediate practical pressure before guilt has been determined.

Early representation can help counsel identify what the government is tracing, which accounts or transactions are at issue, how the alleged proceeds connect to the underlying offense, and what evidence may support the client’s explanation.

Bedi & Singer’s lawyers have experience defending complex white-collar matters involving financial fraud, mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering.

Jonathan Bedi and Dena Singer work together on Bedi & Singer’s matters, with associates contributing where appropriate. Both partners evaluate the financial evidence, witness issues, motion practice, plea considerations, and trial strategy.