White-Collar Defense
The White-Collar Defense Blog highlights recent developments and analysis from white-collar cases around the country, including healthcare fraud, procurement fraud, cryptocurrency fraud, computer fraud, securities fraud, commodities fraud, import fraud, insider trading, investment fraud, and money laundering.
Cryptocurrency Money Laundering Charges and Investigations: Federal Statutes and Defense Strategies
Cryptocurrency money laundering cases involve far more than digital asset transfers. These cases turn on intent, control, and how federal prosecutors apply traditional statutes like 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956, 1957, and 1960 to blockchain-based activity. This in-depth analysis explains how the DOJ and law enforcement agencies build crypto money laundering cases using blockchain analytics, exchange records, and device evidence. It also outlines the defense strategies that matter most, including challenges to tracing, attribution, forfeiture, and jurisdiction.
Insider Trading on Prediction Markets: Next up for DOJ
Trading on prediction markets with material nonpublic information can create significant insider-trading and fraud exposure under federal law. As prediction markets continue to influence public narratives and financial decision-making, they are increasingly likely to become a focal point for insider-trading investigations.
Border Searches of Electronic Devices in 2025 and a look into 2026
A border search of an electronic device, like an iPhone, allows law enforcement agents to inspect a traveler’s digital data without a warrant. But the scope of that authority, and the level of suspicion required, varies across the federal circuits. This inconsistency in the law creates a fractured and increasingly consequential landscape for privacy and navigating criminal investigations.
Another EDNY decision striking down a warrantless border search of an iPhone
Judge Nina Morrison in EDNY recently published another decision striking down federal agents’ authority to conduct a warrantless “border search” of an iPhone. She held that “the government must have a warrant and probable cause to search a cell phone at the border.”
Warrantless “Border Searches” of Cellphones: A Decision on Deck with the Second Circuit
Warrantless cellphone border searches are at the center of a major case scheduled for oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on June 24, 2025. In United States v. Smith, No. 24-1680 (2d Cir.), the court will decide whether federal agents can search a mobile device at the border without obtaining a warrant—and whether evidence from such a search should be suppressed if a constitutional violation occurred.