Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 48

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

Cite as: 524 U. S. 1 (1998)

3

Opinion of the Court

proper because the mailings were completed in that State. By contrast,
the counts here at issue allege no conspiracy, but describe activity in
which Cabrales alone engaged. Nor do they charge that she dispatched
any missive from one State into another; instead, they portray her and
the money she deposited and withdrew as moving inside Florida only.
Finally, the Court rejects the Government’s contention that efﬁciency
warrants trying Cabrales in Missouri because evidence there, and not
in Florida, shows that the money she allegedly laundered derived from
unlawful activity. The Government is not disarmed from showing that
Cabrales is in fact linked to the drug trafﬁcking. She can be, and in-
deed has been, charged with conspiring with the drug dealers in Mis-
souri.
If the Government can prove the agreement it has alleged in
Count I, Cabrales can be prosecuted in Missouri for that confederacy,
and her Florida money laundering could be shown as overt acts in fur-
therance of the conspiracy. See § 371. As the Government acknowl-
edged, the difference in her sentence probably would be negligible.
Pp. 6–10.

109 F. 3d 471 and 115 F. 3d 621, afﬁrmed.

Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Malcolm L. Stewart argued the cause for the United
States. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General
Waxman, Acting Assistant Attorney General Keeney, Dep-
uty Solicitor General Dreeben, and Daniel S. Goodman.

John W. Rogers, by appointment of the Court, 522 U. S.

1106, argued the cause and ﬁled a brief for respondent.*

Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents a question of venue, speciﬁcally, the
place appropriate for trial on charges of money laundering
in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) (conducting a ﬁ-
nancial transaction to avoid a transaction-reporting require-
ment) and § 1957 (engaging in a monetary transaction in
criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000).
The laundering alleged in the indictment occurred entirely
in Florida. The currency purportedly laundered derived

*Steven Wisotsky and Lisa B. Kemler ﬁled a brief for the National Asso-
ciation of Criminal Defense Lawyers as amicus curiae urging afﬁrmance.