By PETE YOST
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court suggested Monday that the U.S. government may be stretching the anti-money- laundering law too far in prosecutions of small-time criminals.

A lawyer for the Bush administration ran into aggressive questioning by justices who wondered why the mere concealment of cash in a car headed for Mexico meets the standard for an international money laundering charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

"All you have here" is transporting cash and concealing it, complained Justice Antonin Scalia.

A person who prevents detection of illegal proceeds "is exactly what Congress had in mind" when it passed the law, replied Lisa Schertler of the Justice Department solicitor general's office.

It is the second such case the court has heard this term.

Four months ago, the justices expressed other concerns with the government's use of the money laundering law in a gambling case. That case is still pending.

When Congress cracked down on the crime of money laundering in 1986, it had two problems in mind: drug cartels and organized crime. The law makes it a crime to transport money across the border when it is designed to conceal the source, ownership or control of the funds.

The government brought money laundering cases against 1,347 people in 2006, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, with the numbers remaining fairly steady for the five-year span starting in 2002.

Between $8 billion and $25 billion a year from Mexican and Colombian drugs is moved across the border and laundered, says the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center.

In the case Monday, officers stopped Humberto Cuellar in Schleicher County, Texas, about a hundred miles from Mexico after his car swerved onto the shoulder of the road. On request, Cuellar pulled out rolled-up cash that police said smelled of marijuana. When he let lawmen search his car, authorities found more than $80,000 (euro54,000)in cash in a secret compartment in the car. Cuellar was convicted of international money laundering and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison.

In Cuellar's case, there's "no grand design," said Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "All he is is a courier."

Chief Justice Hon. John Roberts and Hon. Anthony Kennedy, Hon. Stephen Breyer and Hon. David Souter expressed skepticism that someone caught trying to cross the border with concealed cash would be enough to make a money laundering prosecution.