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524us1$71P 02-16-99 22:29:48 PAGES OPINPGT

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UNITED STATES v. CABRALES

Opinion of the Court

facilitated the ﬁrst or made it proﬁtable by impeding its de-
tection, see id., at 14. But the question here is the place
appropriate to try the “after the fact” actor. As the Gov-
ernment recognizes,
it is immaterial whether that actor
knew where the ﬁrst crime was committed. See Tr. of Oral
Arg. 5–6. The money launderer must know she is dealing
with funds derived from “speciﬁed unlawful activity,” here,
drug trafﬁcking, but the Missouri venue of that activity is, as
the Eighth Circuit said, “of no moment.” 109 F. 3d, at 472.2
Money laundering, the Court of Appeals acknowledged,
arguably might rank as a “continuing offense,” triable in
more than one place, if the launderer acquired the funds in
Id., at 473.
one district and transported them into another.
But that is tellingly not this case.
In the counts at issue,
the Government indicted Cabrales “for transactions which
began, continued, and were completed only in Florida.”
Id.,
at 472. Under these circumstances, venue in Missouri is
improper.

The Government identiﬁed Hyde v. United States, 225
U. S. 347 (1912), and In re Palliser, 136 U. S. 257 (1890), as
the two best cases for its position that money launderers can
in all cases be prosecuted at the place where the funds they
handled were generated. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 6. Neither
decision warrants the ruling the Government here seeks.

In Hyde, the defendants were convicted in the District
of Columbia of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Although none of the defendants had entered the District as
part of the conspiracy, venue was nevertheless appropriate,
the Court ruled, based on the overt acts of a co-conspirator
there.
225 U. S., at 363. By contrast, the counts at issue
in this case allege no conspiracy. They describe activity in
which Cabrales alone, untied to others, engaged.

2 Cf. United States v. Lanoue, 137 F. 3d 656, 661 (CA1 1998) (stating that
crime of being a felon in possession of a ﬁrearm, in violation of 18 U. S. C.
§ 922(g)(1), occurs only where the ﬁrearm is actually possessed).