Money laundering is commonly understood as the process of cleansing the taint from the proceeds of crime. In federal criminal law, however, it is more. In the principal federal criminal money laundering statutes, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956 and 1957, and to varying degrees in several other federal criminal statutes, money laundering involves the flow of resources to and from several hundred other federal, state, and foreign crimes. It consists of: engaging in a financial transaction involving the proceeds of certain crimes in order to conceal the nature, source, or ownership of proceeds they produced; engaging in a financial transaction involving the proceeds of certain crimes in order to promote further offenses; transporting funds generated by certain criminal activities into, out of, or through the United States in order to promote further criminal activities, or to conceal the nature, source, or ownership of the criminal proceeds, or to evade reporting requirements; engaging in a financial transaction involving criminal proceeds in order to evade taxes on the income produced by the illicit activity; structuring financial transactions in order to evade reporting requirements; spending more than $10,000 of the proceeds of certain criminal activities; traveling in, or use of the facilities of, interstate or foreign commerce in order to distribute the proceeds of certain criminal activities; traveling in, or use of the facilities of, interstate or foreign commerce in order to promote certain criminal activities; transmitting the proceeds of, or funds to promote, criminal activity in the course of a money transmitting business; transmitting funds in the course of an unlawful money transmitting business; smuggling unreported cash across a U.S. border; or failing to comply with the Department of the Treasury's anti-money laundering provisions. Money laundering in some forms is severely punished, sometimes more severely than the underlying crime with which it is associated. The penalties frequently include not only long prison terms, but the confiscation of the property laundered, involved in the laundering, or traceable to the laundering. The following is an overview of the elements and other legal attributes and consequences of a violation of Sections 1956 and 1957, as well as selected related federal criminal statutes. Section 1956 outlaws four kinds of laundering—promotional, concealment, structuring, and tax evasion—committed or attempted under one or more of three jurisdictional conditions (i.e., laundering involving certain financial transactions, laundering involving international transfers, and stings). More precisely, Section 1956(a)(1) outlaws financial transactions involving the proceeds of other certain crimes—predicate offenses referred to as "specified unlawful activities" (sometimes known as SUA)—committed or attempted (1) with the intent to promote further predicate offenses; (2) with the intent to evade taxation; (3) knowing the transaction is designed to conceal laundering of the proceeds; or (4) knowing the transaction is designed to avoid anti-laundering reporting requirements. Section 1956(a)(2) outlaws the international transportation or transmission (or attempted transportation or transmission) of funds (1) with the intent to promote a predicate offense; (2) knowing that the purpose is to conceal laundering of the funds and knowing that the funds are the proceeds of a predicate offense; or (3) knowing that the purpose is to avoid reporting requirements and knowing that the funds are the proceeds of a predicate offense. Section 1956(a)(3) covers undercover investigations ("stings"). It outlaws financial transactions (or attempted transactions) that the defendant believes involve the proceeds of a predicate offense and that are intended to (1) promote a predicate offense, (2) conceal the source or ownership of the proceeds, or (3) avoid reporting requirements. Of the three promotional offenses, only the Section 1956(a)(1)(A)(i) financial transaction offense requires use of the proceeds of a predicate offense to promote a predicate offense; the Section 1956 international and sting offenses require only a purpose to promote a predicate offense regardless of the source of the proceeds. Section 1956(a)(1)(A)(i) applies to anyone who: 1. knowing A. that the property involved in a financial transaction, B. represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, 2. A. conducts or B. attempts to conduct such a financial transaction 3. which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity 4. with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity. The knowledge element is the subject of a specific definition which allows a conviction without the necessity of proving that the defendant knew the exact particulars of the underlying offense or even its nature; it is enough that he knew that the property came from some sort of criminal activity and that the property in fact constitutes the proceeds of a predicate offense. The knowledge element cannot be negated by turning a blind eye to reality. Here and throughout Section 1956, knowledge may be inferred from facts indicating that criminal activity is particularly likely. Throughout Section 1956, a defendant "conducts" a financial transaction when he initiates, concludes, or participates in initiating, or concluding a transaction. The "financial transaction" element has two obvious components. It must be a transaction and it must be financial. Both components are defined by statute. Qualifying "transactions" may take virtually any shape that involves the disposition of something constituting the proceeds of an underlying crime, including a disposition as informal as handing cash over to someone else. The "financial" component supplies the jurisdiction foundation for a Section 1956(a)(1)(A)(ii) crime and each of the other crimes in Section 1956(a)(1). Qualifying transactions must either involve the movement of funds in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or involve a financial institution engaged in, or whose activities affect, interstate or foreign commerce. In either case, the effect on interstate or foreign commerce need be no more than minimal to satisfy the jurisdictional requirement. The majority of Section 1956's crimes are related in one way or another to the commission or purported commission of at least one of a list of predicate offenses ("specified unlawful activities"). And so it is the financial transaction promotional offense. The proscribed transaction must involve the proceeds of a predicate offense and be designed to promote a predicate offense. The predicate offenses come in three varieties: state crimes, foreign crimes, and federal crimes. The list of state crimes is relatively short and consists of any state crime that is a RICO predicate offense, that is, "any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act), which is chargeable under state law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year." The list of foreign crimes recognized as Section 1956 predicate offenses is more extensive than the list of state crimes, and covers among other things extraditable offenses, although crimes under the laws of other countries qualify as predicate offenses only if the financial transaction occurs in this country in whole or in part. The list of federal predicate offenses is considerably longer if for no other reason than that the some qualifying offenses are specifically named and others qualify by cross-reference to the voluminous RICO predicate offense list. The crimes listed by name as predicates include offenses such as interstate kidnapping, theft of funds from federally supported programs, and bank robbery. RICO predicates also name bribery, mail fraud, and wire fraud as predicates. Moreover, the RICO predicate offense list encompasses by cross-reference the federal crimes of terrorism cataloged in 18 U.S.C. § 2333b(g)(5)(B). As for the promotional element, some of the lower courts have concluded that it "may be met by transactions that promote the continued prosperity of the underlying offense." One circuit has declared, however, that "the 'promotion' element of money laundering promotion cannot be met simply by demonstrating that the unlawfully earned monies were used to promote the continued functioning of an 'otherwise legitimate business enterprise.' For instance, paying the bills (payroll, rent, taxes) of a health care provider or a car dealership, even one engaged in frequent acts of fraud, may not suffice to support the promotion element." The "proceeds" in the proceeds element of the offense is defined to consist of "any property derived from or obtained or retained, directly or indirectly, through some form of unlawful activity, including the gross receipts of such activity." The definition answers both the profits v. gross receipts question and several others as well. It makes it clear, for example, that the term includes proceeds from a lawful source, retained through the commission of a predicate offense. It does not necessarily invalidate, however, that line of lower court decisions which held that proceeds must be "derived from an already competed offense, or a completed phase of an ongoing offense, before they can be laundered." The international promotional offense, Section 1956(a)(2)(A), applies to anyone who: 1. A. transports, transmits, or transfers, or B. attempts to transport, transmit, or transfer 2. a monetary instrument or funds 3. A. from a place in the U.S. to or through a place outside the U.S. or B. to a place in the U.S. from or through a place outside the U.S. 4. with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity. "Monetary instruments" is a term defined broadly to include cash, checks, securities, and the like. Since Section 1952(a)(2)(A) proscribes both transportation and attempted transportation, prosecution may be had even though no funds were in fact transported internationally, as long as the government proves a substantial step towards international transportation. The section does not demand that the transported funds flow from a predicate offense or from any other unlawful source; all that is required is that the offender intends to use them to promote a predicate offense. Where the international promotional offense shares common elements with other Section 1956 offenses, they are comparably construed.