Source: http://caba.ms/articles/features/driving-hidden-cash-not-money-laundering.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 20:03:08+00:00

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Over the last two decades, law enforcement officers specially trained in the interdiction of drugs have become ubiquitous on Mississippi’s interstate highways. During that time, an incalculable amount of illegal drugs have been seized and the traffickers hauling the drugs prosecuted. In addition to the successful interdiction of illegal drugs, these specially trained law enforcement officers have also become adept at finding and seizing large amounts of money. Prosecuting money couriers, however, presented a challenge. Without actual drug evidence, the odds of bringing a successful prosecution for violating Mississippi’s Uniform Controlled Substances Act were low. And without a bulk currency smuggling statute, the discovery of hidden money seemed to fall between the proverbial “cracks” of Mississippi’s criminal code. In 2004, however, Mississippi’s interstate money laundering statute was successfully used for the first time to prosecute the driver of a vehicle with $170,040 found hidden in the gas tank.
The practice of charging money couriers with money laundering continues in Mississippi today. However, a 2008 United States Supreme Court holding invalidated the federal law upon which Mississippi’s application of its money laundering statute is premised. This change in the law suggests that Mississippi’s prosecutors will no longer be able to sustain money laundering charges brought against bulk money couriers.
In Tran’s appeal, the appellate court based its analysis on the holding in United States v. Carr and found that Tran’s conduct satisfied the concealment element of the statute.
Two years later, with Tran serving his state sentence, the United States Supreme Court rejected the reasoning used in Mississippi to affirm Tran’s conviction, when it held that traveling with drug money hidden in a vehicle is not sufficient to violate the identical federal money laundering statute.11 The Court’s holding in Cuellar calls into substantial doubt the continued viability of the holding in Tran.
While the facts were virtually identical, the holdings were different. The United States Supreme Court concluded that these secretive aspects of the transportation, which “were employed to facilitate the transportation” do not equate to proof “that secrecy was the purpose of the transportation.”19 The Supreme Court’s rationale is logical. The purpose of laundering money is to make it appear as if the money came from a legitimate source. Transporting money obtained from selling drugs for the purpose of giving it to the drug supplier is the antithesis of an attempt to conceal any one of the attributes listed in the statute. Instead of making the money appear to be the proceeds of some legitimate activity, delivering it back to the drug supplier actually proves that the nature of the money is illicit. Certainly transporting the money to the location where the drug supplier is located does nothing to conceal its true nature. Moreover, transporting the money for the purpose of taking it to the drug supplier proves — not conceals — that it is the drug supplier who is the owner of the money. The use of a money courier, and the employment of sophisticated techniques to hide the money during its transportation, are factors that tend to prove — not disprove — that the drug supplier is in control of the funds.
Where Does That Leave Mississippians?
The fact is, we don’t know — Mississippi Courts are not bound by federal law when interpreting Mississippi law. But the likely result is that the Cuellar result will control. Going to great lengths to hide money during its transportation and prevent its detection by police increases the odds that the transportation will be successful. That alone, however, should be insufficient to violate the money laundering statute.20 Hiding money like Tran and Cuellar makes the money appear to be the proceeds of a crime. The purpose of laundering the proceeds of crime is to do just the opposite — to make it appear legitimate. Unless Mississippi’s legislature enacts a bulk currency smuggling law, prosecutors and law enforcement will have to find another way to prosecute drug money couriers in Mississippi.
Scott Gilbert is a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, where he litigated white-collar crime matters, including health care fraud, money laundering, the Bank Secrecy Act, bank fraud, asset forfeiture and public corruption. Scott is now counsel with the firm of Watkins & Eager, where he focuses his practice in Healthcare Litigation, White Collar Criminal Defense and state and federal asset forfeiture litigation and consulting.
Tran v. State, 963 So.2d 1, 4 (Miss.Ct.App. 2006).
Nguyen’s conviction was reversed for reasons unrelated to the issue addressed in this article. Tran, 963 So.2d at 4.
Id. at 7, citing also 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i).
Id. at 12, citing United States v. Carr, 25 F.3d 1194 (3d. Cir. 1994).
Tran v. State, 962 So.2d 1237, 1240 (Miss. 2007).
See Cuellar v. United States, 128 S.Ct. 1994 (2008).
Id. at 2005, (internal citations omitted)(emphasis added).
Cuellar, 128 S.Ct. at 2005.
Cuellar, 128 S.Ct. at 2005 (emphasis included in original).
Id. at 2003 (“[M]erely hiding funds during transportation is not sufficient to violate the statute, even if substantial efforts have been expended to conceal the money.”).

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