[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

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No. 23-13913 ____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus ARTURS SPILA, a.k.a. Arturs Clare,

Defendant-Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cr-00375-MLB-JEM-3 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 23-13913 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 05/13/2025 Page: 2 of 23

2 Opinion of the Court 23-13913

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and GRANT and KIDD, Circuit Judges. WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge: This appeal requires us to decide whether sufficient evi- dence supported a conviction for conspiracy to commit money laundering. 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h). Arturs Spila, an alien, entered the United States in May 2018. Over the next three months, he depos- ited hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in three separate bank accounts. The cash came from a scheme in which fraudsters hired people for fake work-from-home positions. As one of their first as- signments, the new hires cashed checks made payable to them and mailed the cash to Spila’s address. The fraudulent checks inevitably bounced, but the victims’ purported employers never paid or reim- bursed them. And when Spila received the cash, he deposited it in his accounts. He then wired over $200,000 from those accounts in small transactions, mostly to international recipients. A jury con- victed Spila of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Because sufficient evidence supported Spila’s conviction and he fails to iden- tify any reversible error, we affirm. I. BACKGROUND On May 23, 2018, Arturs Spila, a Latvian national, arrived in the United States. Upon his arrival, Customs and Border Protection officers interviewed and screened him. Spila told the officers that he was on vacation and showed them a return airline ticket for June 6. But Spila did not board that flight. Instead, he stayed in the United States until August 14. USCA11 Case: 23-13913 Document: 54-1 Date Filed: 05/13/2025 Page: 3 of 23

23-13913 Opinion of the Court 3

During his stay in the United States, Spila opened three per- sonal bank accounts—two within days of his arrival. He initially reported his home address as 2052 South Hobart Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, but later updated the address associated with all three bank accounts to 1538 North Martel Avenue, Apartment 411, Los Angeles, California. Meanwhile, several people across the country fell victim to a fraud scheme. For example, Francis Cassady, a 70-year-old from Minnesota, thought that he had been hired for a remote job by a foreign company called SOTRAD. As his second assignment, he was told to cash a check from a customer company and mail the cash to a SOTRAD representative. As instructed, Cassady cashed the check (about $2,400), placed the cash in an envelope, and mailed it to “Artur Cole” at 1538 North Martel Avenue, Apartment 411, Los Angeles, California. C