Money Laundering In Connection to Drug Sales – Health & Safety Code 11370.9
Money laundering involves proceeds from drugs being moved in and out of bank accounts or used for other purposes to avoid detection by law enforcement. In other words, there are proceeds from drugs, and then there's money generated, and the question becomes how do you use that money to gain a benefit?
You could run it through a business. You can put it into an account. That's another way that the money could be laundered. In other words, you're trying to clean the money. You're trying to make it so that the funds can be utilized, and law enforcement, the DEA, or anybody involved with the government can't figure out where that money is coming from.
But a lot of times, prosecutors, judges, and other law enforcement people can figure out — when someone's bank account is getting thousands of dollars placed into it — and that person either doesn't work or doesn't carry the type of job that could net that much money, is being used as a pawn to move drug proceeds in and out.
That's how they clean it. That's how they launder it. They buy businesses. They buy homes. They've taken the money that's being used for drugs, and they're getting assets from it, and the government can figure that out because they see these accounts getting money, and they know where the money is coming from.
Government Tracking Drug Transactions
People think that somehow, just because they run it through an innocent person's account, it cleans the money. But if the government can track it there coming from drug transactions, then they're going to seize it, they're going to charge the poor person whose accounts are being used, and they're going to charge the person who has generated the money if they can figure out who that is.
Unfortunately, many of these people cloak themselves and use others desperate for money to use their accounts so nobody can figure it out.
Then the government comes in and grabs the person whose account it is, and that person is saying, I didn't know anything, but then the government stares them in the face and says look, you're laundering money related to drugs.
You're using your business, for example. How could your business possibly get all of this money? Where's your company getting the funds that are in the account? We're not fooled unless you can show me that you're generating it through selling lawful goods. We want your records. We want to see what you're doing.
So, money laundering, in its most basic form, is used with drugs all the time throughout the country. Not just California. This type of drug crime is covered under California Health & Safety Code 11370.9.
Experienced Drug Crime Lawyer
The feds and even the state government know how to track this activity, and it is not just Los Angeles. If you're charged with money laundering related to drugs, you better get an attorney quickly because this is a serious crime, and a lot of times, there are defenses that you can utilize.
A lot of times, you really don't realize that you somehow got tangled up in a web of drugs and money, and your business and your bank account are being used, and you didn't know that it was going to be used for that purpose. You were tricked, and that happens all the time.
So, if you have one of these cases, call an experienced drug crime attorney. We'll move this thing in the right direction.
