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The criminal money laundering statutes grew out of the experience drug investigators had in tracking the proceeds of illegal drug transactions. Frequently, the cash was disguised as legitimate proceeds or hidden in a way that concealed the true owner and was then moved into the legitimate stream of commerce or returned to the country where the drugs originated to keep the scheme going. This led to training investigators to believe that money laundering always occurred in three stages: placement, layering and integration. That model, however, has little application to most money laundering scenarios, including those that involve funds already in electronic form when the laundering process begins. This paper aims to take a broader look at money laundering and suggests an accordingly broader approach to identifying money laundering transactions.

A review of the origins of the current paradigm.

The current paradigm is obsolete.

A broader approach to training is needed.

Civil forfeiture is an increasingly common way for governments to relieve criminal wrongdoers of the proceeds of their crimes and to restore the property to the victims of the offense. The question that is asked, however, is this: Is civil forfeiture an essential tool that is needed to fill a gap in the arsenal of weapons available to law enforcement or is it a prosecutorial shortcut that allows cases to be closed without obtaining the evidence needed to obtain a criminal conviction in cases that should be prosecuted criminally. The answer is that it is both. When properly used, civil forfeiture is an essential tool that provides a means of recovering property, but it is a tool that can also be used to save time and money even though the investment of those resources in bringing a criminal to justice would better serve the public interest. The aim of this paper is to show why this is so.

Analysis of the use of civil forfeiture in the USA.

Civil forfeiture is an essential law enforcement tool.

While undeniably an essential law enforcement tool, civil forfeiture is sometimes used as a shortcut to conserve resources.

It is now common for criminals to generate proceeds of crime in one country and to transfer those proceeds to another country. For example, drug traffickers who generate enormous profits from the sale of cocaine and other controlled substances in the USA will employ professional money launderers to move the money from the USA to financial institutions abroad.

Discusses the range of tools that US prosecutors have available to track down people financing terrorism and confiscating their money. Proposes a basic approach that focuses on more pedestrian offences than those specifically targeted at terrorism. Points out that traditional forensic techniques do not work well in tracking terrorist money, especially as even the attack of September 11 did not involve huge amounts of money (about $500,000). Summarises the statutory tools in the Patriot Act: Section 981(a)(1)(G), Section 2339A, and Section 2339B. Argues that the international money laundering statute 18 USC Section 1956 (a)(2)(A), which makes it a crime simply to send money out the USA in order to promote another crime, is much easier to use: this is attacking reverse money laundering, because it is the destination of the money rather than its origin which is relevant. Mentions also 18 USC Section 1960, which covers domestic as well as international money laundering, and illustrates use of this statute in the case of Yehuda Abraham, who was prosecuted simply for not having a money remitter’s licence in a case involving procurement of missiles.

The paper is intended to illustrate the reasons why a legislature contemplating the enactment of a set of comprehensive asset forfeiture statutes to enhance the State's ability to recover the proceeds of crime should include provisions relating to in rem civil forfeiture.

The paper reviews the law‐enforcement situations in which civil forfeiture statutes are essential to the State's ability to recover the proceeds of crime.

The paper concludes that in personam criminal forfeiture statutes, which authorize a court to impose forfeiture as an element of the defendant's sentence in a criminal case, are inadequate, by themselves, to allow the State to recover criminal proceeds, and that in rem civil forfeiture provisions must be included in a legislative scheme for it to be fully effective.

The paper is intended to be of practical value and national legislatures in countries attempting to modernize the law‐enforcement tolls available to them to recover criminal proceeds both domestically and in the global economy.

The paper outlines the reasons why a purely in personam asset forfeiture system that relies on a criminal conviction for the recovery of criminal proceeds in inadequate, and why governments implementing asset forfeiture schemes should make civil in rem forfeiture part of the legislative program.

Describes a new form of money laundering which does not involve proceeds of past crimes but clean money intended to be used to commit future crimes. Adduces the financing of terrorism as the obvious example: the cash for the attacks of September 11 may have been clean, but the purpose was deadly. Points out that, because anti‐money laundering legislation is mostly backward looking, it tends not to address the financing of future crimes. Looks at the initial attempts in US legislation to correct this: the PATRIOT Act made smuggling more than $10,000 currency in or out of the country illegal, while moving money in or out of the country in order to commit a crime was already a crime in itself. Argues that a domestic version of this statute is necessary, and suggests how such a law could be crafted, mentioning Section 1960(b)(1)(c) of the PATRIOT Act.

Describes how asset forfeiture works in the USA; both civil and criminal forfeiture of property are used to recover property involved in crime that crosses national borders, and each has its advantages. Shows how the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act 2000 (CAFRA) and the PATRIOT Act 2001 deal with transnational crime and recovery, applying them to various possible cases: the criminal proceeds are in the USA but the defendant is abroad, the money is in the USA but the crime was committed abroad, the criminal is in the USA but the property is abroad, the crime was committed in the USA but the criminal and/or the money is abroad, and the USA needs foreign government assistance to restrain property and obtain bank records. Deals with particular issues in the last case, such as bank records, attorneys’ fees, and challenges abroad to the restraint on the merits; lastly, mentions how forfeiture of terrorist assets is now covered. Concludes that the PATRIOT Act and its predecessor, CAFRA, have given US law enforcement new powers to seize and confiscate assets involved in international crime; terrorism is the immediate focus, but all criminal activity crossing frontiers can be combated effectively.

The purpose of this paper is to inform an international audience of the difficulties prosecutors in the USA have encountered in light of a decision of the US Supreme Court limiting the application of the federal anti‐money laundering statute to cases where a criminal enterprise generated profits.

The paper summarizes the law in the USA regarding money laundering prosecutions before the decision in the United States v. Santos, outlines the decision of the Supreme Court, and organizes the post‐Santos case law into categories setting forth the divergent views of what the decision means and how it is to be applied.

The case law in the USA regarding money laundering prosecutions is now quite unsettled. Courts have taken different views as to whether the government must now prove that the funds being laundered by or on behalf of a criminal represent the profits of the criminal enterprise as opposed to its gross receipts.

The case law on this issue continues to develop at a rapid pace. It is necessary to cut off the research on this issue to complete the paper, but the reader should be aware that new cases are being issued in rapid order.

Prosecutors in the USA now face several obstacles in bringing money launderers to justice. Decisions in closed cases may be reopened as defendants argue that their convictions are obtained under an incorrect view of the law. Going forward, prosecutors are uncertain whether the government must prove that a criminal enterprise is profitable before they can obtain a conviction for money laundering.

Prior to Santos, it is assumed that it is an offense to launder the gross receipts of a crime or criminal scheme. Santos cases grave doubt on that assumption, holding that in at least some cases, the laundering offense will apply only where the financial transaction involves the net profits of an offense. This is an object lesson in the confusion that can result from inartful legislative drafting. It also provides a guide to the current state of the law and suggests how prosecutors in the USA are dealing with the problem pending any legislative correction.

This paper aims to discuss the issues about the recovery of the proceeds of crime, with emphasis on the USA situation.

The paper first sets forth the rationale for Section 981(k) of the Patriot Act and the requirements the government must satisfy to use it successfully to recover criminal proceeds. It then discusses the facts of a case where the new statute was applied and the legal arguments that were made when a foreign bank challenged the application of the statute in federal court. Finally, it discusses how the court resolved those issues in granting the government's suit for the recovery of the money.

Finds that Section 981(k), while controversial, has proven effective in allowing the Government of the USA to recover property from wrongdoers in the types of cases where it was intended to be applied.

Shows that Section 981(k) is an innovative and controversial addition to the arsenal of weapons that federal law enforcement authorities in the USA can use to recover the proceeds of crime.

The globalization of crime has made it possible for international money launderers, kleptocrats and fraudsters to commit crimes in one jurisdiction while remaining safe in another and hiding their assets in a third. At the same time, law enforcement officials remain constrained by the rules of national sovereignty that inhibit their ability to recover assets located beyond the territorial jurisdiction of their courts. Three recent cases, however, illustrate that governments have begun to find ways to hurdle the walls that have traditionally made the recovery of assets in other countries so difficult. This paper aims to sketch the facts of those cases, the legal issues presented and the ways in which the obstacles presented by the walls of sovereignty were overcome.

This paper is the study of three recent cases.

The cases illustrate how obstacles presented by national sovereignty have been overcome.

The cases will serve as a guide to future international cooperation.