United States v. Santos: The U.S. Supreme Court Rewrites the Money Laundering Statute

Stefan D. Cassella, US Dept of Justice

Article comments

This article has been accepted for publication in Vol. 12, Issue 3, of the Journal of Money Laundering Control as part of the proceedings of the Twentisixth Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime

Abstract

The United States Supreme Court has upset decades of money laundering case law, by construing the term “proceeds” to mean “net profits” instead of “gross receipts” in at least some money laundering cases. In the resulting confusion, lower courts have struggled to determine when the Court’s ruling applies, and how the Government may satisfy the “profits” requirement when it must do so. This article discusses the Court’s decision in United States v. Santos and the problems that it has created, and attempts to make sense of the post-Santos case law.