the defendant's conviction and sentence to be reversed for reasons stated in our brief and the reasons that all are here or the central issue of this appeal is whether somebody can be convicted for concealment money wondering when they merely acted as a conduit through which money flowed from one drug buy alert buyer to one drug dealer and the question has to be resolved i think first by looking at the statutory language under eighteen u s c one thousand nine hundred fifty said the one the concealment element that the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt requires that the defendant had to know that the transaction was designed in whole or in part to disguise the nature location source ownership or control of the proceeds and the question as it pertains to this case is whether my client who operated a bank account in california in his name and received deposits from a drug buyer in the quad cities and then with drew those deposits and gave them to a drug dealer in los angeles who turned around bought marijuana and sold it to the buyer in the plot cities whether he concealed the nature location source ownership or control of the money that was going through his bank account the central case or the the most controlling case that would dictate how this court should reach this decision would be its prior case and united states first estimate which is a two thou three case and estimated goes into quite a bit of detail and background as to what constitutes concealment money laundering and it first starts by describing the process of money laundering the first step is that the criminal illegal money is placed in one legitimate enterprise then the funds are layered to obscure the source and then third step and final step is that the new  laundered funds are integrated into legitimate financial world in the form of legitimate financial instruments and it gives it was just of instruments that our financial world uses on a day to day basis in this case the money that was placed into mr sheridan's account was never placed into any legitimate enterprise it was placed into a bank account that was held in the defendant's name and was not placed in any sort of business like a ticket purchase or restaurant that has tremendous crowds the funds were not layered to obscure the source the deposits were simply made from branches in the quad cities to mr sheridan's accounts and they were withdrawn from mr shared ins counts given to the drug dealer and california who use that money to buy drugs thirdly and most importantly i think the funds were never layered they were never entered rated into any legitimate financial instrument it was just money that was placed into one bank account taken out of the bank account given to a drug dealer in california who then bought drugs with the money and then sent it back to that but cities at no point in time did any of the funds that were placed into the bank account come  part test for determining whether money laundering or curse there's the first part is that there must be some separation between the initial transaction from which the illegal proceeds were derived and further transactions designed to conceal the source of the proceeds the second is that mere transfer and spending of funds is not enough to constitute money laundering under the concealment theory now as to the first factor there was no separation between the initial transaction from which the illegal proceeds were derived and that is because this was all one in looping transaction this occurred many many times over the course of many months and the district court in sentencing alluded to that fact that mr sheridan's role was not to legitimize the plans through some other separate transaction but merely to facilitate the transfer of money from the quad cities to los angeles so that the money could be used to buy marijuana to send back to the quad cities as to the second factor the mere transfer and spending appliance that's exactly what we have here the defendant's wall post merely to accept the plans into his account withdraw them notoriously through the local bank branches in los angeles in full view of the video camera signing his real name every time and then giving them to a has what turned out to be his cousin  in los angeles so estimate talks about the transformation of illegal funds to some clean and usable form for the separate turns action and i think that that is really the most important theme is that the funds were never were never converted into any cleaner useful work they were always the funds that were deposited into his account were destined to buy drugs and the funds that were withdrawn from his account were similarly dust and to buy drugs at no point were any of the funds to burgard into any legitimate enterprise from which he was able to pay taxes convert into some sort of legitimate financial instrument or otherwise clean these funds the fact of the matter is that the money always stays dirty and if the government's theory holds true or if this court has to accept the government theory then anyone who transfers funds even by hand from one drug purchaser to another in other words some sort of middleman that took facilitates that financial transaction between two parties would be guilty of concealment money laundering the only thing that makes this any more sophisticated than hand transactions is the fact that he used bank accounts but the record shows that that was not a terribly sophisticated means of transferring money across the country and that in fact most of the time that this is going on the parties that are involved in this are trying to stay one step ahead of the banks shutting their accounts down which is really what this is about is about it's not about concealing the nature the the ownership control of the proceeds it's about being able to continue to transfer money across the country in the most expedient way and the most expedient way to do that is through bank accounts it's the mere transfer funds from one place to another and that's supported by the record with the fact that at the beginning of this operation they used to transport money back and forth through the u s mail in cash but then  that became too slow so they started doing it with the banks the banks caught on and started closing down accounts that had opened more counts  these funds were never clean we know the nature of the funds the detective who is looking at the case and trying to follow the money as he stated was able to discern exactly what these monies were where they were going their location where the source was who owned who controlled them all of this was easily identifiable this is not  the only reason he was a third party to these transactions was to conceal who was really involved in the transactions there's no reason for him to get involved but to conceal and we believe the all of the evidence at trial supports the jury's conclusion that he was in these thirty two substantive counts and with his agreement with his cousin guilty of the charges alleged against him once the cash was withdrawn from his account cold my opposing counsel says it was never clean well it's just cash it was criminally derived it's true it wasn't clean in that manner but it was cash that could be used by the drug dealer in california with impunity at that point and the fact that they didn't conceal it very well is true of every defendant who is convicted of money laundering through the concealment prong  only when you're caught you haven't concealed it very well that's the nature of this case are you are you conceding that the da and the f b i lack any level of trouble calls and that sophisticated money launderers are therefore never caught know i'm not saying that bumbling cops know i'm not saying that i'm just saying that doesn't have to be sophisticated for it to be concealment that was the attempt i think maybe the best use of the rest of my time would be to make sure that there isn't any questions by the court they are answered seeing them and we will ask that the judgment be affirmed certainly counsel to i just wanted to touch on one statement that opposing counsel made and that was that the cash that  that the drug dealer in california received he was able to use with impunity well the cash never transformed from the quad cities california he would be able to use that cash with im