Money Laundering Charge Explained by Federal Attorney - YouTube

Hi, I'm David Tarras, partner at the Rossen  Law Firm, head of our federal criminal  

defense practice, as well as our white collar  criminal defense practice. I'm here today to  

talk to you about money laundering. Now,  when people think about money laundering,  

a lot of times are thinking about what they hear  or see in the movies or these big stories. And  

they're thinking about money laundering as  someone who is having this massive scheme,  

this massive plan making billions of dollars  and then they're washing their money.

People think of these machines, like in  Scarface, that are running the money and  

the bills come out clean. That is part of money  laundering, people bringing their money to the  

Cayman Islands, to Switzerland, trying to conceal  the illegal profits of whatever crime they may or  

may not be committing. But in reality, and  in the Southern District of Florida and many  

other districts throughout the country and federal  law, money laundering is actually a lot more broad  

and basic, but can still at the same time  carry very, very serious consequences.

That's why we're talking about money laundering  today, so you can have a down to earth expert in  

money laundering and how it actually plays out in  court and how the prosecutors actually feel about  

money laundering offences and how they're  used by the Department of Justice and the  

Federal Criminal Defense System. Now there's  two main general types of money laundering.  

There is what's called promotional money  laundering and concealment money laundering.

Promotional money laundering is a process by which  the Department of Justice in the U.S. Attorney's  

Office will try and come after our clients for  actually using the proceeds of a criminal offense  

and doing this concealment of money to further the  criminal offense. On the other hand, concealment  

money laundering is a crime in which the proceeds  from the criminal offense are already gathered.

And then the charge is that our clients might  be trying to hide or conceal the proceeds of the  

criminal offense. Now, money laundering  in reality, can be these very serious-  

all of them are serious, but these very high  profile cases that people hear about in the news,  

bringing money on boats to different countries,  washing money, things like that, what they see  

in movies and hear in big stories. But it can  also be a lot simpler and just as dangerous.

These offenses of money laundering  carry between 10 to 30 years in  

federal prison. And money laundering in  cases that we've seen can be as simple as  

somebody involved in some sort of criminal act,  

receiving money in their bank account from that  criminal act and moving it into a different  

account or withdrawing it and using it for their  own purposes. And that is money laundering.

And it is a pitfall because a lot of times  people will get an indictment or people will  

hopefully just start off with a federal criminal  investigation. And these prosecutors will say, 

"We are prosecuting you for money laundering." And our clients will call us and say, 

"Money laundering? I wasn't going to the Cayman  Islands with boatloads and millions of dollars.  

How could this be money laundering?" 

Money laundering prosecutions can  be very, very technical in nature.

They can be on the simpler end, they can be  on the much more complex end. But all in all,  

they are complex. You need a federal criminal  defense attorney with expertise in it because  

very simple monetary transactions can be money  laundering. And the prosecutors will use that  

fact to try and put you in a position to force you  to plea. Our job is to prevent that, whether the  

prosecutors think that this is just another one of  those "catch-alls" that we've been talking about,

there are still many defenses to  money laundering and the big one,  

still- what prosecutors forget, what lawyers  forget- is that there still has to be criminal  

intent. You have to have been taking these actions  with the criminal, with the knowledgeable purpose  

of concealing or promoting  a crime. It's not enough  

to just for the government to look at your  transactions, subpoena your records and say,

"We think that this money is illegal.  You moved this money so you're guilty  

of money laundering." No, the government  and the government alone has to establish  

beyond and to the exclusion of all  reasonable doubt that you actually knew  

that the money was derived from criminal proceeds  in the first place and that you were moving this  

money into an account- or whatever it might have  been moved, in a way to conceal unlawful money.

It cannot be overlooked that as much as the  federal government might be overwhelming,  

as much as that indictment might be overwhelming,  as much as these FBI officers might tell you,  

"You're screwed. We have you. We have  all of your bank records." You cannot  

roll over. You have to come to us.  You have to bring us on board and  

make sure that you're just not going to  be another person in the system who says, 

"The federal government has me. The  federal government doesn't make mistakes.  

I'm going to prison." No, that's not how we  

operate. These are technical, complex  matters that our expertise requires.

And we hope that if you're ever facing a charge  of money laundering that you will not hesitate  

to come and meet with me, come and meet with  our whole staff here, about these cases, about  

these charges. And let us ease your mind. Let us  help you say, "No." The government does not have  

you wrapped up. We're going to make sure to get  you through this in the best, best possible way.