mentioned above.

Opinion of the Court

464 U. S.

From those proceeds, petitioner paid

Carter $30,000 for his assistance.

...

III

Title 18 U. S. C. §1962(c) states that it shall be unlawful "for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise's affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt." Section 1962(d) makes it unlawful to conspire to violate § 1962(c). Section 1963(a)(1) provides that a person convicted under § 1962 shall forfeit to the United States "any interest he has acquired or maintained in violation of section 1962."

ure.

The sole issue in this case is whether profits and proceeds derived from racketeering constitute an "interest" within the meaning of this statute and are therefore subject to forfeitPetitioner contends that § 1963(a)(1) reaches only “interests in an enterprise" and does not authorize the forfeiture of mere "profits and proceeds." He rests his argument upon the propositions that criminal forfeitures are disfavored in law and that forfeiture statutes, as a consequence, must be strictly construed.

In a RICO case recently decided, this Court observed: "In determining the scope of a statute, we look first to its language. If the statutory language is unambiguous, in the absence of 'a clearly expressed legislative intent to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive."" United States v. Turkette, 452 U. S. 576, 580 (1981), quoting from Consumer Product Safety Comm'n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102, 108 (1980). See also Dickerson v. New Banner Institute, Inc., 460 U. S. 103, 110 (1983); Lewis v. United States, 445 U. S. 55, 60 (1980).

Here, 18 U. S. C. § 1963(a)(1) calls for the forfeiture to the United States of "any interest . . . acquired . . . in violation

of section 1962." There is no question that petitioner Russello acquired the insurance proceeds at issue in violation of § 1962(c); that much has been definitely and finally settled. Accordingly, if those proceeds qualify as an "interest," they are forfeitable.

The term "interest" is not specifically defined in the RICO statute. This silence compels us to "start with the assumption that the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used." Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 9 (1962). The ordinary meaning of "interest" surely encompasses a right to profits or proceeds. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1178 (1976), broadly defining "interest," among other things, as a "good," "benefit," or "profit. Random House Dictionary of the English Language 741 (1979) defines interest to include "benefit.'" Black's Law Dictionary 729 (5th ed., 1979) provides a significant definition of "interest": "The most general term that can be employed to denote a right, claim, title, or legal share in something." It is thus apparent that the term "interest" comprehends all forms of real and personal property, including profits and proceeds.

This Court repeatedly has relied upon the term "interest" in defining the meaning of "property" in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 601 (1972) (“property' denotes a broad range of interests"); Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U. S. 422, 430 (1982); Jago v. Van Curen, 454 U. S. 14, 17-18 (1981). It undoubtedly was because Congress did not wish the forfeiture provision of § 1963(a) to be limited by rigid and technical definitions drawn from other areas of the law that it selected the broad term "interest" to describe those things that are subject to forfeiture under the statute. Congress selected this general term apparently because it was fully consistent with the pattern of the RICO statute in utilizing terms and concepts of breadth. Among these are "enterprise" in § 1961(4); “rack

eteering activity" in § 1961(1) (1982 ed.); and "participate" in § 1962(c).

Petitioner himself has not attempted to define the term "interest" as used in § 1963(a)(1). He insists, however, that the term does not reach money or profits because, he says: "Interest,' by definition, includes of necessity an interest in something." Brief for Petitioner 9. Petitioner then asserts that the "something" emerges from the wording of § 1963(a)(1) itself, that is, an interest "acquired . . . in violation of section 1962," and thus derives its meaning from the very activities barred by the statute. In other words, a direct relationship exists between that which is subject to forfeiture as a result of racketeering activity and that which constitutes racketeering. This relationship, it is said, means that forfeiture is confined to an interest in an "enterprise" itself. Petitioner derives support for this approach from United States v. Marubeni America Corp., supra, and from language contained in two Federal District Court opinions, United States v. Meyers, 432 F. Supp. 456, 461 (WD Pa. 1977), and United States v. Thevis, 474 F. Supp. 134, 142 (ND Ga. 1979), aff'd on other grounds, 665 F. 2d 616 (CA5 1982). He also now relies on the McManigal case, supra, recently decided by the Seventh Circuit. Tr. of Oral Arg. 4.

We do not agree. Every property interest, including a right to profits or proceeds, may be described as an interest in something. Before profits of an illegal enterprise are divided, each participant may be said to own an "interest" in the ill-gotten gains. After distribution, each will have a possessory interest in currency or other items so distributed. We therefore conclude that the language of the statute plainly covers the insurance proceeds petitioner received as a result of his arson activities.

IV

We are fortified in this conclusion by our examination of the structure of the RICO statute. We disagree with those

16

Opinion of the Court

courts that have felt that a broad construction of the word "interest" is necessarily undermined by the statute's other forfeiture provisions. The argument for a narrow construction of § 1963(a)(1) is refuted by the language of the succeeding subsection (a)(2). The former speaks broadly of "any interest. . . acquired," while the latter reaches only "any interest in any enterprise which [the defendant] has established[,] operated, controlled, conducted, or participated in the conduct of, in violation of section 1962." Similar less expansive language appears in §§ 1962(b) and 1964(a). "[W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion." United States v. Wong Kim Bo, 472 F. 2d 720, 722 (CA5 1972). See United States v. Wooten, 688 F. 2d 941, 950 (CA4 1982). Had Congress intended to restrict § 1963(a)(1) to an interest in an enterprise, it presumably would have done so expressly as it did in the immediately following subsection (a)(2). See North Haven Board of Education v. Bell, 456 U. S. 512, 521 (1982); United States v. Naftalin, 441 U. S. 768, 773-774 (1979). In the latter case, id., at 773, the Court said: "The short answer is that Congress did not write the statute that way." We refrain from concluding here that the differing language in the two subsections has the same meaning in each. We would not presume to ascribe this difference to a simple mistake in draftsmanship.

The evolution of these statutory provisions supplies further evidence that Congress intended § 1963(a)(1) to extend beyond an interest in an enterprise. An early proposed version of RICO, S. 1861, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. (1969), had a single forfeiture provision for § 1963(a) that was limited to "all interest in the enterprise." This provision, however, later was divided into the present two subsections and the phrase "in the enterprise" was excluded from the first. Where Congress includes limiting language in an earlier version of a bill

but deletes it prior to enactment, it may be presumed that the limitation was not intended. See Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546, 580-581 (1963). See Weiner, Crime Must Not Pay: RICO Criminal Forfeiture in Perspective, 1981 N. Ill. U. L. Rev. 225, 238, and n. 49. It is no answer to say, as petitioner does, Brief for Petitioner 17-18, that if the term "interest" were as all-encompassing as suggested by the majority opinion of the Court of Appeals, § 1963(a)(2) would have no meaning independent of § 1963(a)(1), and would be mere surplusage. This argument is plainly incorrect. Subsection (a)(1) reaches “any interest," whether or not in an enterprise, provided it was "acquired . . . in violation of section 1962." Subsection (a)(2), on the other hand, is restricted to an interest in an enterprise, but that interest itself need not have been illegally acquired. Thus, there are things forfeitable under one, but not the other, of each of the subsections.2 We note that the RICO statute's definition of the term "enterprise" in § 1961(4) encompasses both legal entities and illegitimate associations-in-fact. See United States v.

Turkette, 452 U. S., at 580–593. Forfeiture of an interest in an illegitimate association-in-fact ordinarily would be of little use because an association of that kind rarely has identifiable assets; instead, proceeds or profits usually are distributed immediately. Thus, construing § 1963(a)(1) to reach only interests in an enterprise would blunt the effectiveness of the provision in combating illegitimate enterprises, and would mean that "[w]hole areas of organized criminal activity would be placed beyond" the reach of the statute. United States v. Turkette, 452 U. S., at 589.

Petitioner stresses that 21 U. S. C. §848(a)(2), contained in the Controlled Substances Act, 84 Stat. 1242, as amended, specifically authorizes the forfeiture of "profits" obtained in a continuing criminal enterprise engaged in certain drug offenses. Brief for Petitioner 6-7. The Ninth Circuit in

2 There may well be factual situations to which both subsections apply. The subsections, however, are clearly not wholly redundant.