Consequences for Money Laundering in South Carolina
As the name suggests, money laundering involves ‘cleaning’ unlawfully obtained assets – often through a legitimate business – to reintroduce them into the financial system. This allows offenders to hide criminal gains by mixing them with lawful business profits, making it harder for law enforcement officers to trace the money back to unlawful activity.
Because money laundering involves mixing lawful and unlawful assets, South Carolina prosecutors often go after your entire business. If you’ve been charged with money laundering in South Carolina state or federal court, you need an experienced Greenville white-collar crimes defense attorney from Ryan Beasley Law.
Understanding South Carolina Money Laundering Schemes
Criminal organizations have numerous indirect and direct means of laundering dirty money. The most common money laundering schemes in Greenville include the following:
- Cash Businesses: Opening a restaurant or other cash-heavy business and claiming the unlawfully gained assets are business profits.
- Gambling: Trading the cash for casino chips, playing, and then cashing in the chips as if you won.
- ‘Smurfing’: Giving the money to multiple people and asking them to make small deposits and return the income to you for a fee.
- Transformation: Using the unlawful assets to purchase stock, diamonds, gold, cars, or other assets that can be resold.
- Import-Export:Over-invoicing to transfer unlawful assets with other lawful imports or exports.
- Loans: Deposit the money and then use it as collateral to obtain a loan.
- Buy Low–Sell High: Create a fraudulent transaction for real estate or other high-value assets by paying most of the fee in cash and then re-selling the asset at its full price.
South Carolina criminalizes various forms of money laundering under its Anti-Money Laundering Act. These laws prohibit anyone from knowingly conducting a financial transaction with unlawfully gained assets with the intent to conceal or disguise the nature, ownership, location, or source of the proceeds.
Felony Consequences of Money Laundering
Under S.C. Code § 35-11-740, money laundering is punishable as a Class E, F, or C felony, depending on the amount of money involved in the transaction. Felony charges in South Carolina carry heavy criminal penalties, including jail time, fines, asset forfeiture, and social consequences. Money laundering convictions might prevent you from obtaining certain employment, loans, and professional certifications.
In most cases, prosecutors – especially if you’ve been charged in federal court – will go after any business or assets linked to the unlawful gains. For example, the U.S. attorney may demand you liquidate an entire business and conduct something called asset tracing. This allows law enforcement to seize and sell any assets purchased with laundered money, including homes, cars, and stocks. Because it’s considered unlawfully obtained, you might even lose lawful profits related to these assets.
Hire a White-Collar Defense Lawyer to Defend Against South Carolina Money Laundering Charges
Make no mistake: state and federal authorities financially benefit from seizing unlawfully obtained assets. They will go after your business, home, stocks, and bank accounts if you’ve been charged with money laundering in Greenville. Prosecutors might also seize any gifts provided to family members, directly impacting spouses, parents, and children.
If you’ve been charged with money laundering in South Carolina state or federal court, you could lose everything unless you retain a dedicated money laundering defense attorney from Ryan Beasley Law. Schedule your confidential criminal defense consultation with our white-collar defense team immediately by calling 864-756-4204 or by filling out our online contact form.