Miscellaneous

Spitzer and "structuring"

By Walter Olson, Ted Frank, and David Nieporent

A helpful reader sends along the following information about the offense of "structuring", which federal investigators are reportedly looking at closely in connection with the Spitzer affair:

If Spitzer structured cash transactions to evade reporting requirements, he may be guilty of a felony. 31 U.S.C. 5324 prohibits certain actions by any person who acts with the purpose of evading the reporting requirements of Section 5313 (Currency Transaction Reports). The definition of structuring for purposes of currency transaction reporting is found at 31 C.F.R. 103.11(gg). The elements of the structuring regulations are:

A person acting alone, in conjunction with others, or on behalf of others,
Conducts or attempts to conduct,

One or more transactions in currency,

In any amount,

At one or more financial institutions,

On one or more days,

For the purpose of evading the reporting requirements of 31 C.F.R. 103.22 (requiring CTRs).

The definition is specifically written to include those transactions which occur beyond a single business day and transactions which are conducted through more than one financial institution, but only if the purpose of the transaction(s) is to evade the reporting requirements.

The reader adds: "The IRS Manual on the BSA structuring provisions is here."

More: Kerr @ Volokh, WLS @ Patterico, Daniel Gross @ Slate , Mark Steyn ("Almost every white-collar federal offense - wire fraud, mail fraud - boils down to 'paying for the train ticket'"), American Lawyer, ABC News, as well as my new piece @ NRO.

Yet more, from Eric Turkewitz: "It seems likely that an amount in excess of $10,000 must be at issue if this is what was being investigated, which means more of a mess than Eliot already has. And to tickle the bank to act, it may be a sum well in excess of that amount, because I wouldn't think an investigation would be opened if they simply saw two transactions of, say, $6,000 each a few days apart. There could be substantially more at play here."

Full post as published by Overlawyered on March 11, 2008 (boomark / email).