Opinion ID: 814677
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Extraterritorial Application of Rico

Text: Defendants argue that their count one convictions are invalid because the charged conspiracy was extraterritorial and outside the reach of RICO. We review de novo a challenge to the extraterritorial application of criminal statutes. See Vasquez-Velasco, 15 F.3d 833, 838–40 (9th Cir. 1994); see also United States v. Felix-Gutierrez, UNITED STATES V . XU 11 940 F.2d 1200, 1203–04 (9th Cir. 1991); Chua Han Mow v. United States, 730 F.2d 1308, 1311 (9th Cir. 1984). In Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869, 2875 (2010), the Supreme Court confronted the question whether § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act applies extraterritorially. The Court began its analysis under the premise that “[w]hen a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none.” Id. at 2878. The Court then concluded that, because § 10(b) contained no “affirmative indication” of extraterritorial effect, it could not be applied extraterritorially. Id. at 2883. In the wake of Morrison, this circuit has not considered whether RICO applies extraterritorially. We have previously held, however, that RICO is silent as to its extraterritorial application. See Poulous v. Caesars World, Inc., 379 F.3d 654, 663 (9th Cir. 2004). Other courts that have addressed the issue have uniformly held that RICO does not apply extraterritorially. See generally Norex Petroleum Ltd. v. Access Indus., Inc., 631 F.3d 29, 33 (2d Cir. 2010); European Cmty. v. RJR Nabisco, Inc., 2011 WL 843957, at  (E.D.N.Y Mar. 8, 2011); In re Toyota Motor Corp., 785 F. Supp. 2d 883, 913 (C.D. Cal. 2011); Sorota v. Sosa, 842 F. Supp. 2d 1345, 1349 (S.D. Fla. 2012). Although those cases addressed the civil rather than the criminal RICO statute, they are faithful to Morrison’s rationale: “Rather than guess anew in each case, this Court applies the presumption [against extraterritorial application] in all cases, preserving a stable background against which Congress can legislate with predictable effects.” Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2881. Therefore, we begin the present analysis with a presumption that RICO does not apply extraterritorially in a civil or criminal context. 12 UNITED STATES V . XU Defendants argue that because RICO does not apply extraterritorially, the government cannot apply the statute in this case because the conspiracy took place in China and Hong Kong, not the United States. Defendants define the enterprise as having two parts. Indeed, Defendants were charged here with membership in a criminal enterprise that involved not only embezzlement against the Bank of China that occurred in China and Hong Kong (part one) but also immigration fraud to escape to the United States with their ill-gotten gains (part two). Accordingly, we must determine whether under the circumstances of this case RICO can be lawfully applied to any, or all, of Defendants’ conduct—foreign or domestic. See id. at 2884 (the “presumption here (as often) is not self-evidently dispositive, but its application requires further analysis.”).