18 U.S.C. § 1341 - Frauds and swindles

• Cite as: 18 U.S.C. § 1341

Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, or to sell, dispose of, loan, exchange, alter, give away, distribute, supply, or furnish or procure for unlawful use any counterfeit or spurious coin, obligation, security, or other article, or anything represented to be or intimated or held out to be such counterfeit or spurious article, for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting so to do, places in any post office or authorized depository for mail matter, any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by the Postal Service, or deposits or causes to be deposited any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by any private or commercial interstate carrier, or takes or receives therefrom, any such matter or thing, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail or such carrier according to the direction thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, any such matter or thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation occurs in relation to, or involving any benefit authorized, transported, transmitted, transferred, disbursed, or paid in connection with, a presidentially declared major disaster or emergency (as those terms are defined in section 102 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act ( 42 U.S.C. 5122 )), or affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

Cite as 18 U.S.C. § 1341

Source: June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 763; May 24, 1949, ch. 139, §34, 63 Stat. 94; Pub. L. 91-375 §(6)(j)(11), Aug. 12, 1970, 84 Stat. 778; Pub. L. 101-73, title IX, §961(i), Aug. 9, 1989, 103 Stat. 500; Pub. L. 101-647, title XXV, §2504(h), Nov. 29, 1990, 104 Stat. 4861; Pub. L. 103-322, title XXV, §250006, title XXXIII, §330016(1)(H), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2087, 2147; Pub. L. 107-204, title IX, §903(a), July 30, 2002, 116 Stat. 805; Pub. L. 110-179, §4, Jan. 7, 2008, 121 Stat. 2557.

Notes from the Office of Law Revision Counsel

current through 5/22/2023

HISTORICAL AND REVISION NOTES

1948 ACT

Based on title 18, U.S.C., 1940 ed., §338 (Mar. 4, 1909, ch. 321, §215, 35 Stat. 1130).

The obsolete argot of the underworld was deleted as suggested by Hon. Emerich B. Freed, United States district judge, in a paper read before the 1944 Judicial Conference for the sixth circuit in which he said: