Money laundering is not explicitly defined as a crime in North Carolina law, though the activity is related to many laws on criminal activity in crimes that often involve money laundering, such as in drug trafficking. Most laws that go after money laundering are federal, largely because the crime entails transferring money in “interstate commerce” or national and foreign banks and businesses. Generally, the federal government has greater resources to pursue these kinds of crimes, so these charges should be taken even more seriously than seemingly equivalent state charges.

There are several federal laws in place to help the government investigate and punish money laundering, including:

• Bank Secrecy Act of 1970: This act requires financial institutions to report certain “suspicious” financial transactions to the U.S Department of Treasury. For example, they must report transactions over $10,000.
• Money Laundering Control Act of 1986: This act prohibits U.S citizens from making financial transactions using the profit of various crimes.
• USA Patriot Act of 2001: This act includes a provision called the “Money Laundering Abatement and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act”, which was intended to make it difficult for terrorists to launder money within the USA. It also allows the government to charge financial institutions who are “willfully blind” to money-laundering schemes in their institution, so they must hire employees to detect and track these schemes.

As for criminal punishment of money laundering, the racketeering laws under 18 U.S.C 95 cover penalties for money laundering convictions. For most money laundering crimes, the penalties entail large fines and prison sentences of up to 20 years, but life sentences are possible for laundering crimes involving violence.