Opinion ID: 449211
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Alleged Conspiracy To Violate the Foreign Transaction Reporting Requirements of Sec. 5314

Text: 57 The Act's reporting requirements with respect to transactions with foreign financial agencies are set forth in 31 U.S.C. Sec. 5314, which, unlike Sec. 5313, imposes those requirements on resident[s] or citizen[s] of the United States rather than on financial institutions as such. Section 5314 provides in pertinent part as follows: 58 (a) Considering the need to avoid impeding or controlling the export or import of monetary instruments and the need to avoid burdening unreasonably a person making a transaction with a foreign financial agency, the Secretary of the Treasury shall require a resident or citizen of the United States or a person in, and doing business in, the United States, to keep records, file reports, or keep records and file reports, when the resident, citizen, or person makes a transaction or maintains a relation for any person with a foreign financial agency. The records and reports shall contain the following information in the way and to the extent the Secretary prescribes: 59 (1) the identity and address of participants in a transaction or relationship. 60 (2) the legal capacity in which a participant is acting. 61 (3) the identity of real parties in interest. 62 (4) a description of the transaction. 63 31 U.S.C. Sec. 5314(a). The pertinent regulation provides in part as follows: 64 Each person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States (except a foreign subsidiary of a U.S. person) having a financial interest in, or signature or other authority over, a bank, securities or other financial account in a foreign country shall report such relationship to the Secretary for each year in which such relationship exists, and shall provide such information as shall be specified in a reporting form prescribed by the Secretary to be filed by such persons. 65 31 C.F.R. Sec. 103.24 (1984). 66 In the present case, the district court ruled that the indictment did not sufficiently allege an offense under Sec. 5314 because that section requires reports from an individual having an interest in foreign accounts and it was not alleged that any of the defendants had such an interest. 587 F.Supp. at 309. The court's conclusion does not follow from its premises. 67 The indictment charged defendants with conspiracy to violate Sec. 5314, in violation of the conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. 371, not with a substantive violation of Sec. 5314. Though there was no indication in the indictment that any of the defendants themselves had or were to acquire an interest in a foreign bank account as to which they would be required to report, count 1 fairly alleged that defendants conspired to violate Sec. 5314 by helping Lotz to place large amounts of cash in a foreign account without reporting the fact of such transfers and by providing a service that would conceal the true source and true holder of the funds in such an account. Thus, the indictment, although it did not mention 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2 (1982), the aiding and abetting section, adequately set forth factual allegations which, if proven, would allow the jury to find that defendants had conspired to aid and abet Lotz in failing to report an interest in a foreign bank account. See United States v. Perry, 643 F.2d 38, 45-46 (2d Cir.) (defendants may be convicted of conspiring to aid and abet another to commit a substantive offense), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 835, 102 S.Ct. 138, 70 L.Ed.2d 115 (1981); United States v. Taylor, 464 F.2d 240, 242 n. 1 (2d Cir.1972) (aiding and abetting theory may be submitted to jury though indictment did not charge a violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2). 68 Nor is the fact that there was no actual violation of Sec. 5314 because Lotz never acquired an interest in such an account any impediment to the imposition on defendants of liability for conspiracy. A substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit that offense are separate and distinct crimes. Callanan v. United States, 364 U.S. 587, 593, 81 S.Ct. 321, 325, 5 L.Ed.2d 312 (1961); Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 643, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 1182, 90 L.Ed. 1489 (1946); United States v. Tombrello, 666 F.2d 485, 489 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 994, 102 S.Ct. 2279, 73 L.Ed.2d 1291 (1982). A defendant thus may be convicted of the crime of conspiracy even if the substantive offense was not actually committed. See United States v. Rose, 590 F.2d 232, 235 (7th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 442 U.S. 929, 99 S.Ct. 2859, 61 L.Ed.2d 297 (1979). 69 Finally, while a person acting as an agent of the government cannot be a coconspirator, see United States v. Tombrello, 666 F.2d at 490 n. 3; United States v. Chase, 372 F.2d 453, 459 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 387 U.S. 907, 87 S.Ct. 1688, 18 L.Ed.2d 626 (1967), the presence of such an agent does not destroy a conspiracy in which at least two other private individuals have agreed to engage in an unlawful venture, see, e.g., United States v. Elledge, 723 F.2d 864, 866 (11th Cir.1984), and defendants may be convicted of conspiracy even if, unbeknownst to them, the substantive crime would never have been committed because the person the coconspirators thought would commit it was actually an agent of the government, see United States v. Rose, 590 F.2d at 235 (fact that defendants' plan was doomed because they unwittingly chose as their instrumentalities agents of the government is irrelevant to the existence of the conspiracy); United States v. Seelig, 498 F.2d 109, 113 (5th Cir.1974) (fact that a government informant was to effect the actual distribution of the drug does not extirpate [the defendants'] liability for conspiring to violate the law). 70 We find no merit in defendants' contentions that the indictment does not sufficiently plead conspiracy and that they did not have the requisite intent to violate Sec. 5314. Count 1, which expressly invoked Sec. 5314, contained sufficient factual allegations to apprise the defendants of the government's contentions as to the time, place, and nature of, and participants in, the alleged conspiracy to violate that section, as well as many overt acts allegedly done in furtherance thereof. A conspiracy to violate Sec. 5314 was therefore adequately pleaded. See Wong Tai v. United States, 273 U.S. 77, 80-81, 47 S.Ct. 300, 301-302, 71 L.Ed. 545 (1927) (indictment for conspiracy need not be pleaded with the same particularity as would be required of an indictment for substantive offense so long as defendant is adequately advised of what charges he must meet). To the extent that defendants argue that they lacked the requisite intent to violate Sec. 5314, they raise factual questions to be determined at trial, not on this appeal. 71 We have examined all of defendants' other contentions and find them to be without merit.