Basically all money in circulation is prior proceeds of crime (and also will soon be going back to crime) and all reasonable lukewarm IQ people know this. It's such a chicken shit law.
He is actually wrong, that isn't what the law says. The reason its illegal in this instance is because their transactions related to carrying on a crime (they used user donations to pay for maintaining the site). Per the indictment they are charged under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956(a)(1)(A)(i) which states:
> (a)(1) Whoever, knowing that the property involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity—
> (A)(i) with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity;
You can read the entire code but it criminalizes 2 main categories of conduct. Knowingly using the proceeds of a crime to promote the carrying on of a crime. And knowingly using the proceeds of a crime in a transaction that attempts to conceal the source of the proceeds. So even if you assume all money is the proceeds of a crime this law would not apply to you as long as you don't use it to commit any crimes yourself and you don't attempt to hide where you got it.
You're correct, but I think most reasonable people would find that statute wildly overbroad. By this logic you could charge a weed dealer who buys a bus ticket from home to downtown (where they habitually sell weed) with money laundering. Hell, you could charge them for missing the bus.
> You can read the entire code but it criminalizes 2 main categories of conduct. Knowingly using the proceeds of a crime to promote the carrying on of a crime. And knowingly using the proceeds of a crime in a transaction that attempts to conceal the source of the proceeds. So even if you assume all money is the proceeds of a crime this law would not apply to you as long as you don't use it to commit any crimes yourself and you don't attempt to hide where you got it.
I agree that the way I explained the law was less than completely accurate. But I was talking about money laundering charges as add-on charges. Your "as long as you don't use it to commit any crimes yourself" is unlikely to apply to a defendant who is getting a money laundering charge as an add-on rather than the sole charge.
Theoretically, you might commit a crime, and draw proceeds from that crime, and never use those proceeds in any way to further the commission of the underlying crime – but in practice that doesn't seem particularly likely. An enterprising prosecutor is going to come up with some explanation of how you used the proceeds to further the criminal enterprise which produced them – e.g. you used the money to buy a car, and then you went on a crime-related car trip; you used the money to buy a phone, and then you made a crime-related phone call; etc – and once the jury is convinced you are guilty of the underlying criminal conduct, they'll be primed to believe the prosecutor's explanation. Especially since the law doesn't require the prosecution to prove that you actually used the proceeds to further the criminal enterprise, only that you intended to.
It's absolute bullshit because the crime (copyright violation) had not been proven at the time of the transaction, and without that, how does one know they're violating copyright vs. exercising fair use rights?
