[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 610 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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117th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. RES. 610
Expressing the sense of Congress that the activities of transnational
criminal organizations, including the use of illicit economies, illicit
trade, and trade-based money laundering, pose a threat to the national
interests and national security of the United States and allies and
partners of the United States around the world.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
May 3, 2022
Mr. Cassidy (for himself, Ms. Sinema, Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Graham, Mr.
Menendez, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. Rubio, and Mr. Young)
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee
on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that the activities of transnational
criminal organizations, including the use of illicit economies, illicit
trade, and trade-based money laundering, pose a threat to the national
interests and national security of the United States and allies and
partners of the United States around the world.
Whereas trade-based money laundering is among the most widely used and least
understood forms of money laundering, disguising proceeds of crime by
moving value through international trade transactions in an attempt to
legitimize illicit origins of money or products;
Whereas the transnational nature and complexity of trade-based money laundering
make detection and investigation exceedingly difficult;
Whereas drug trafficking organizations, terrorist organizations, and other
transnational criminal organizations have succeeded at trade-based money
laundering despite the best efforts of United States law enforcement;
Whereas trade-based money laundering includes other offenses such as tax
evasion, disruption of markets, profit loss for businesses, and
corruption of government officials, and constitutes a persistent threat
to the economy and security of the United States;
Whereas trade-based money laundering can result in the decreased collection of
customs duties as a result of the undervaluation of imports and
fraudulent cargo manifests;
Whereas trade-based money laundering can decrease tax revenue collected as a
result of the sale of underpriced goods in the marketplace;
Whereas trade-based money laundering is one mechanism by which counterfeiters
infiltrate supply chains, threatening the quality and safety of
consumer, industrial, and military products;
Whereas drug trafficking organizations collaborate with Chinese criminal
networks to launder profits from drug trafficking through Chinese
messaging applications;
Whereas, on March 16, 2021, the Commander of the United States Southern Command,
Admiral Faller, testified to the Committee on Armed Services of the
Senate that transnational criminal organizations ``market in drugs and
people and guns and illegal mining, and one of the prime sources that
underwrites their efforts is Chinese money-laundering'';
Whereas the deaths and violence associated with drug traffickers, the financing
of terrorist organizations and other violent non-state actors, and the
adulteration of supply chains with counterfeit goods showcase the danger
trade-based money laundering poses to the United States;
Whereas trade-based money laundering undermines national security and the rule
of law in countries where it takes place;
Whereas illicit profits for transnational criminal organizations and other
criminal organizations can lead to instability globally;
Whereas the United States is facing a drug use and overdose epidemic, as well as
an increase in consumption of synthetic drugs, such as methamphetamine
and fentanyl, which is often enabled by Chinese money laundering
organizations operating in coordination with drug-trafficking
organizations and transnational criminal organizations in the Western
Hemisphere that use trade-based money laundering to disguise the
proceeds of drug trafficking;
Whereas the presence of drug traffickers in the United States and their
intrinsic connection to international threat networks, as well as the
use of licit trade to further their motives, is a national security
concern;
Whereas drug-trafficking organizations frequently use the trade-based money
laundering scheme known as the ``Black Market Peso Exchange'' to move
their ill-gotten gains out of the United States and into Central and
South America;
Whereas United States ports and U.S. Customs and Border Protection do not have
the capacity to properly examine the 60,000,000 shipping containers that
pass through United States ports annually, with only 2 to 5 percent of
that cargo actively inspected;
Whereas trade-based money laundering can only be combated effectively if the
intelligence community, law enforcement agencies, the Department of
State, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Treasury, the
Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the
private sector work together;
Whereas drug-trafficking organizations, terrorist organizations, and other
transnational criminal organizations disguise the proceeds of their
illegal activities behind sophisticated mechanisms that operate
seamlessly between licit and illicit trade and financial transactions,
making it almost impossible to address without international
cooperation; and
Whereas the United States has established Trade Transparency Units with 18
partner countries, including with major drug-producing and transit
countries, to facilitate the increased exchange of import-export data to
combat trade-based money laundering: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
(1) the activities of transnational criminal organizations
and their networks, and the means by which such organizations
and networks move and launder their ill-gotten gains, such as
through the use of illicit economies, illicit trade, and trade-
based money laundering, pose a threat to the national interests
and national security of the United States and allies and
partners of the United States around the world;
(2) in addition to considering the countering of illicit
economies, illicit trade, and trade-based money laundering as a
national priority and committing to detect, address, and
prevent such activities, the President should--
(A) continue to assess, in the periodic national
risk assessments on money laundering, terrorist
financing, and proliferation financing conducted by the
Department of the Treasury, the ongoing risks of trade-
based money laundering;
(B) finalize the assessment described in the
Explanatory Statement accompanying the Financial
Services and General Government Appropriations Act,
2020 (division C of the Consolidated Appropriations
Act, 2020 (Public Law 116-93)), which directs the
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Department
of the Treasury to thoroughly assess the risk that
trade-based money laundering and other forms of illicit
finance pose to national security;
(C) work expeditiously to develop, finalize, and
execute a strategy, as described in section 6506 of the
Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (title LXV of
division F of Public Law 116-283; 134 Stat. 4631),
drawing on the multiple instruments of United States
national power available, to counter--
(i) the activities of transnational
criminal organizations, including illicit trade
and trade-based money laundering; and
(ii) the illicit economies such
organizations operate in;
(D) coordinate with international partners to
implement that strategy, exhorting those partners to
strengthen their approaches to combating transnational
criminal organizations; and
(E) review that strategy on a biennial basis and
improve it as needed in order to most effectively
address illicit economies, illicit trade, and trade-
based money laundering by exploring the use of emerging
technologies and other new avenues for interrupting and
putting an end to those activities; and
(3) the Trade Transparency Unit program of the Department
of Homeland Security should take steps to strengthen its work,
including in countries that the Department of State has
identified as major money laundering jurisdictions under
section 489 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C.
2291h).
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