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A LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL ENTITLED 

THE ‘‘BANK ACCOUNT SEIZURE OF 

TERRORIST ASSETS (BASTA) ACT’’ 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MONETARY 

POLICY AND TRADE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 17, 2014 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services 

Serial No. 113–93 

( 

(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas, Chairman 

GARY G. MILLER, California, Vice Chairman 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama, Chairman 

Emeritus 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

MICHELE BACHMANN, Minnesota 

KEVIN McCARTHY, California 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

MICHAEL G. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania 

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri 

BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan 

SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin 

ROBERT HURT, Virginia 

STEVE STIVERS, Ohio 

STEPHEN LEE FINCHER, Tennessee 

MARLIN A. STUTZMAN, Indiana 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida 

ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina 

ANN WAGNER, Missouri 

ANDY BARR, Kentucky 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

KEITH J. ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

MAXINE WATERS, California, Ranking 

Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

JOHN C. CARNEY, JR., Delaware 

TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan 

PATRICK MURPHY, Florida 

JOHN K. DELANEY, Maryland 

KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona 

JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio 

DENNY HECK, Washington 

STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada 

SHANNON MCGAHN, Staff Director 

JAMES H. CLINGER, Chief Counsel 

(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MONETARY POLICY AND TRADE

JOHN CAMPBELL, California, Chairman 

BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan, Vice Chairman 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

STEPHEN LEE FINCHER, Tennessee 

MARLIN A. STUTZMAN, Indiana 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri, Ranking 

Member 

GARY C. PETERS, Michigan 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

JOHN C. CARNEY, JR., Delaware 

JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut 

TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama 

PATRICK MURPHY, Florida 

KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona 

DENNY HECK, Washington 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

July 17, 2014 ..................................................................................................... 1 

Appendix: 

July 17, 2014 ..................................................................................................... 27 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2014 

Farah, Douglas, President, IBI Consultants LLC ................................................. 15 

Fowler, Jennifer L., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorism and Financial 

Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury ......................................................... 3 

Howes, Thomas R., victim of international terrorism .......................................... 14 

Miller, Marshall L., Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, 

U.S. Department of Justice ................................................................................. 5 

Perles, Steven R., Founder and Senior Partner, Perles Law Firm, PC .............. 17 

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Farah, Douglas ................................................................................................. 28 

Fowler, Jennifer L. ........................................................................................... 42 

Howes, Thomas R. ............................................................................................ 45 

Miller, Marshall L. ........................................................................................... 66 

Perles, Steven R. ............................................................................................... 70 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Posey, Hon. Bill: 

Affidavit of Keith Stansell ............................................................................... 75 

Affidavit of Marc Gonsalves ............................................................................. 80 

Affidavit of Thomas Howes .............................................................................. 85 

Affidavit of Judith Janis .................................................................................. 89 

Affidavit of Christopher Janis ......................................................................... 93 

Affidavit of Greer Janis .................................................................................... 97 

Affidavit of Michael Janis ................................................................................ 101 

Affidavit of Jonathan Janis ............................................................................. 105 

Letter from the U.S. Attorney, Southern District of New York, dated 

May 27, 2010 ................................................................................................. 108 

Letter from the U.S. Department of Justice, dated September 23, 2010 .... 113 

Letter from the U.S. Department of Justice, dated December 1, 2011 ........ 117 

Letter from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, dated March 19, 2013 .. 118 

(1) 

A LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL ENTITLED 

THE ‘‘BANK ACCOUNT SEIZURE OF 

TERRORIST ASSETS (BASTA) ACT’’ 

Thursday, July 17, 2014 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MONETARY

POLICY AND TRADE, 

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:45 a.m., in room 

2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill Huizenga [vice 

chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Huizenga, Posey, Stutzman, 

Mulvaney, Cotton; and Sewell. 

Ex officio present: Representative Hensarling. 

Mr. HUIZENGA (presiding). The subcommittee will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of 

the subcommittee at any time. Also, without objection, members of 

the full Financial Services Committee who are not members of this 

subcommittee may sit on the dais and participate in today’s hearing. 

And I should make note we did have a Floor update that between 

10 and 10:15, we will have our first series of votes today. But it 

will be a relatively short one, so we are going to try and get 

through opening statements and get through this first panel. And 

then, we will reconvene 5 minutes after the final vote on the Floor. 

So with that, the Chair now recognizes himself for a brief opening statement. 

This committee regularly considers matters of great technical detail, matters that can have a great effect on the world economy or 

on individual lives. What we don’t routinely do is consider shooting 

wars or Americans who spend years in captivity by Marxist rebels. 

Today, we will be discussing those difficult topics and some matters of extraordinary complexity involving ways to fairly compensate victims of these heinous acts. 

In early 2003, Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves, Tom Howes, and 

Tom Janis were engaged in a counter-narcotics operation in Colombia under the auspices of the Department of Defense when their 

plane crash-landed. They were captured by members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a violent guerrilla 

group that has funded itself by kidnapping and narcotics trafficking while in armed conflict in Colombia since the mid-1960s. 

2 

The guerrillas executed Tom Janis at the crash site, and the 

three remaining men were held hostage and tortured for more than 

5 years until they and a number of their hostages were rescued by 

the Colombian military. 

Today’s hearing will focus on matters related to the execution of 

courts’ judgments against assets of the FARC for actions taken 

against these American hostages captured in Colombia. 

And I have quite a bit more, but in the interest of time, I think 

I am going to dispense with that. And with that, I don’t know that 

we have anybody on the other side—not yet. So if that is okay, 

what we will do is recognize Mr. Posey for 3 minutes for an opening statement. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief. I would 

like to thank Chairman Hensarling for calling this hearing, and I 

thank you for your support and the committee for the support to 

grant justice to the victims of narco-terrorism. 

The three surviving former FARC hostages, Marc Gonsalves, 

Keith Stansell, and my constituent, Tom Howes, are here today. 

We will hear from them in a little while. Unfortunately, the family 

of Tom Janis, who was executed by FARC, cannot be here today. 

These men put themselves in harm’s way to provide service to 

our Nation and were hostages of the FARC for 51⁄2 years, longer 

than I have been in Congress. They have endured hardships beyond imagination and are American heroes who deserve our respect 

and our admiration. 

Congress gave these men the right to sue FARC captors in Federal court. Congress also passed Section 201 of the Terrorism Risk 

Insurance Act (TRIA), which gave the victims of terrorism the ability to seize assets of terrorists and their agents. 

Unfortunately, TRIA does not currently allow these men to seize 

assets of FARC-related drug smugglers, money launderers, and gun 

runners because they are blocked under the Kingpin Act. The 

Treasury Department has chosen to block FARC assets only under 

the Kingpin Act even though they would be blocked under other 

statutes that would allow them to seize assets. 

Furthermore, the Treasury Department believes that it is better 

to use blocked Kingpin assets to negotiate with narco-traffickers 

than to allow victims of these terrorists to have access to these 

funds and settle their court-adjudicated claims. 

These men have repeatedly asked Treasury to reclassify FARC 

assets to allow them to seize them, but were either ignored or denied. There is no administrative solution, and legislative action is 

necessary. 

Our staff spent months reaching out to the Administration to get 

their comments on the bill. They responded one time, and we need 

massive changes to the bill to address their concerns. It is the 

smallest change in the law necessary to achieve the objective. 

I am therefore glad to have this opportunity to demonstrate how 

and why we introduce the BASTA Act to remedy this injustice. I 

thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. The gentlemen yields back. 

And with that, we are going to move right to our panel. I would 

like to extend a welcome to our first panel of witnesses: Jennifer 

Fowler, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorism and Financial 

3 

Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury; and Marshall Miller, 

Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice. 

You will each be recognized for 5 minutes to give your oral presentation of your testimony. And without objection, your written 

statements will be made a part of the record. And, of course, in 

front on you on the table is a series of lights: green; yellow; and 

red. When it turns red, you will have one minute to sum up. And 

I will be quick with the gavel today. So once each of you has finished testifying, each member of the committee will have 5 minutes 

in which to ask questions. 

Ms. Fowler, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF JENNIFER L. FOWLER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY FOR TERRORISM AND FINANCIAL CRIMES, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY 

Ms. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Clay, 

and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to 

appear today before you to discuss the proposed bank account seizure of terrorist assets amendment and its potential effects on 

Treasury’s implementation of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, commonly known as the Kingpin Act. 

Before I begin, I want to extend my deepest sympathies and that 

of the Department of the Treasury, to all victims of violence, from 

terrorism and all other crimes, and strongly condemn all violent 

acts by terrorist organizations, including the Revolutionary Armed 

Forces of Colombia or the FARC. 

For nearly 15 years, the Treasury Department has robustly implemented the Kingpin Act to disrupt and dismantle narcotics trafficking organizations like the FARC and deprive them of the resources needed to carry out their violent activities that threaten 

U.S. and global security. 

The Kingpin Act prohibits transitions with foreign narcotics traffickers identified by the President and provides authority for Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, to designate foreign individuals and entities that are acting on behalf of the designated kingpins. This authority allows OFAC to go after the financial and support networks of drug-trafficking organizations, including the money launderers, front companies and transportation and 

communications firms facilitating their activities, as well as the assets where they store their wealth. 

The Kingpin Act is one of the most powerful and effective tools 

we have to disrupt the financial underpinnings of narcotics trafficking organizations. These sanctions have been used with great 

success against traffickers in Mexico, such as Los Zetas and the 

Sinaloa Cartel in Colombia, and throughout Central America. 

Particularly in Honduras and Guatemala, the Kingpin Act has a 

global reach and OFAC has targeted drug traffickers around the 

world, including in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Nigeria. Since June 

2000, more than 1,600 individuals and entities have been named, 

pursuant to the Kingpin Act, for their role in international narcotics trafficking. This authority has been enhanced by our robust 

cooperation with foreign governments and law enforcement who 

4 

have often initiated investigations in their own countries, based on 

our designations. 

These foreign investigations sparked by Kingpin Act designations 

have resulted in numerous seizures and arrests abroad. The seizure by the Honduran government in September 2013 of $500 million in narcotics-linked assets was done in close coordination with 

OFAC on a Kingpin designation. It was the largest drug-related 

asset seizure in Honduran history. 

Financial sanctions have been called a civil death by narcotics 

traffickers themselves, due to their subsequent inability to maintain banking and commercial relationships. These financial sanctions isolate them from the U.S. financial system, and often the financial system in their own country. 

In addition, if the traffickers have assets in the United States, 

these assets are blocked or frozen and access to the assets is controlled by the government. Traffickers must then petition OFAC 

and demonstrate a change in their behavior for the designation to 

be lifted and to regain access to those frozen assets. Using access 

to these frozen assets is an important point of leverage to effect behavioral change by narcotics traffickers. 

Since 2000, 200 Kingpin Act designees have come to us to petition for removal. After a thorough investigation, OFAC agreed that 

137 of them had demonstrated a credible change in behavior and 

therefore removed them from the SDN list. In some cases, designated individuals showed proof of credible change by agreeing to 

cooperate with U.S. or foreign enforcement, by renouncing any 

rights to foreign assets derived by narcotics trafficking, or by severing their ties to front companies. 

The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, commonly known as 

TRIA, allows for a person who has obtained a judgment against a 

terrorist party to attach any blocked assets of that terrorist party 

in aid of satisfying such judgment. Currently, the term ‘‘blocked assets,’’ as defined by TRIA, refers only to assets frozen by the 

United States, pursuant to the Trading with the Enemy Act or the 

International Emergency Economic Powers Act. 

The Kingpin Act, on the other hand, was specifically created to 

address the separate threat to our country’s international interests 

posed by the activities of international narcotics traffickers. 

Amending TRIA’s definition of blocked assets to include property 

frozen, pursuant to the Kingpin Act, could have potentially negative effects. We expect that, as applied, this amendment could result in the attachment and depletion of blocked assets of non-terrorist-related narcotics traffickers, including those operating in 

Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. This could limit Treasury’s ability to use these blocked assets as leverage against dangerous groups such as the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas, Los Cachiros, 

and Colombian criminal gangs involved in the drug trade. 

In closing, I want to urge Congress to give careful consideration 

to the potential impact any amendment to TRIA may have on the 

targeting of drug-trafficking organizations under the Kingpin Act. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today, and 

I welcome any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Deputy Assistant Secretary Fowler 

can be found on page 42 of the appendix.] 

5 

Mr. HUIZENGA. With that, we now recognize Mr. Miller for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF MARSHALL L. MILLER, ACTING PRINCIPAL 

DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to speak at this hearing. The 

Department of Justice is fully committed to using all of our prosecutorial tools to combat terrorists and narcotics-trafficking organizations. The primary approach employed by the dedicated prosecutors at the Department of Justice is the prosecution of members 

and associates of such groups for their criminal acts. We also employ our forfeiture authorities to seize assets and we vigorously 

pursue restitution for crime victims. 

The Department works with crime victims on a daily basis to ensure they receive justice for the harms they have suffered. Specifically, the seizure and forfeiture of assets that represent the proceeds of Federal crimes or that were used to facilitate those crimes 

are covered by the Department of Justice’s Asset Forfeiture Program. 

The program’s primary mission is to use asset forfeiture to enhance public safety and security by ensuring that crime does not 

pay. To accomplish that mission, the Department forfeits the proceeds of crime or other substitute assets directly from the criminals 

themselves. Asset forfeiture, thus, takes the profit out of crime, disrupts criminal organizations, lessens their economic influence, and 

serves as a deterrent to future criminal activity. 

In addition, the laws governing asset forfeiture provide pretrial 

preservation tools to prevent criminal defendants from dissipating 

crime proceeds, ensuring that such proceeds remain available for 

forfeiture or restitution. 

The Criminal Division’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering 

Section, or AFMLS, spearheads the asset forfeiture program, and 

more generally, the Department’s asset forfeiture and anti-moneylaundering enforcement efforts. 

Most importantly for today’s hearing, AFMLS leads the Department’s efforts to return forfeited criminal proceeds to those harmed 

by crime by through the administration of victim claims. The Department works to ensure that victims of crime are fairly and equitably compensated. The authority to distribute forfeited funds has 

been entrusted to the Attorney General. This makes sense legally, 

because once property or funds are forfeited, ownership of the property or funds in question transfers to the government. But it is also 

sensible, as it allows the government to finalize and execute forfeiture orders fairly without prejudicing the rights of any claimants. 

The process by which the Department distributes forfeited assets 

is known as remission. Under the applicable regulatory framework 

governing remission, the Department has provided compensation to 

thousands of victims for a wide variety of crimes, ranging from 

Ponzi schemes, mail and wire fraud, and health care fraud, to identity theft, intellectual property, and trademark violations. 

6 

Since 2001, nearly $4 billion in forfeited assets has been disbursed to victims by the Department, under the Attorney General’s 

authority. Over $203 million has been returned to victims so far 

this year. The remission process is governed by Federal regulations 

that define a victim as an innocent person who has suffered a pecuniary loss as a direct result of the crime underlying the forfeiture 

or a related offense. It is important to note that the remission regulations give no preferential treatment to any particular victims. All 

victims must submit and document their losses with supporting 

documents. 

When the forfeited funds are not sufficient to compensate multiple victims for the entirety of their losses, the funds are generally 

distributed on a pro rata basis in accordance with each victim’s 

verified pecuniary loss amount. 

An important purpose of these regulations is to prevent victims 

of crime from being doubly harmed, first by the underlying criminal conduct and a second time as resources are dissipated as victims are forced to compete over a limited pot of money. The Department remains steadfast in its commitment to ensuring that forfeiture plays a key role in helping victims recover from the crimes 

committed against them. 

If I might take a brief moment, I would like on behalf of the Department of Justice to express our strong feelings of sympathy, respect, and admiration for the FARC hostage-taking victims, particularly Mr. Howes, Mr. Stansell, and Mr. Gonsalves, who are 

here today, as well as the families of those who lost their lives during that crime. 

Their resolve, tenacity, and dedication to this country in the face 

of horrific treatment from their FARC captors is truly inspiring, 

and the Department of Justice will not rest in our efforts to bring 

their captors to justice. 

I would like to again thank the subcommittee for holding this 

hearing and providing the Department with the opportunity to explain our forfeiture efforts, remission procedures, and commitment 

to compensating the victims of crime. I am happy to answer any 

questions that you may have, and I yield back any time that I still 

have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller can be found on page 66 

of the appendix.] 

Mr. HUIZENGA. The gentleman yields back. Thank you for doing 

that. At this time, the Chair yields himself up to 5 minutes for 

questions. And with that, I will start with you, Mr. Marshall. 

So as we were talking about—this is rather technical. Help me 

understand the technical differences between blocked, frozen, 

seized, and forfeited assets, and really what the circumstances are; 

I know you were touching on that. 

I want to make sure that as you were talking about the pecuniary damages that have happened, how this has—I am assuming 

part of this is, how do you quantify monetarily what the damage 

is? Is that where part of the hang-up is? 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To begin with the first 

part of your question, there is a significant difference between 

blocked and frozen assets on the one hand, and seized and forfeited 

assets on the other. 

7 

And I can let my colleague from the Department of the Treasury 

speak a little more about frozen and blocked assets, but essentially 

those are assets that remain under the ownership of the original 

party whose assets were blocked. They can’t access those assets. 

They can’t use those assets, but they remain in their ownership. 

Seized or frozen assets mean assets that the Department of Justice has taken action to actually assume ownership of. So when a 

criminal prosecution is filed and forfeiture allegations are included 

against particular assets, we, the Department of Justice, get a warrant to seize those assets and then begin the process of actually 

taking ownership of them. 

So when the assets are ultimately forfeited, ownership transfers 

to the Government of the United States. Those are important tools 

that we use in criminal cases, the forfeiture authorities, to stop 

criminals from dissipating those assets during the penancy of a 

criminal prosecution, making sure that those assets are seized, and 

thus at the end of a criminal prosecution they can be provided to 

victims through restitution or forfeiture or ultimately forfeited to 

the United States. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. In your testimony, though, you talked about focusing on victims who have suffered ‘‘quantifiable pecuniary harm.’’ 

As the regulations set forth, quantifying nonpecuniary harm is a 

very difficult process. Is there no way of determining financially 

what the harm was here? 

Mr. MILLER. One way that takes place, Mr. Chairman, is in the 

restitution process. So in an individual criminal case, there is a— 

at times, courts can attempt to quantify harms to individuals that 

aren’t the loss of particular funds. So in a nonfraud case for example, when funds are forfeited, the regulations that govern the remission process do require proof of some sort of quantifiable pecuniary harm. 

To attempt to quantify a non-pecuniary harm is not called for 

within the regulations and is, as the Chair recognized, a difficult 

process, one that could consume significant resources as the Department or some independent body attempts to figure out what 

dollar figure should attach to nonpecuniary harm and then resolve 

the differences amongst potentially numerous victims with respect 

to that harm. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. All right. I have a minute-and-a-half left, and we 

did just have votes called, but we are going to try and get through 

this. 

Ms. Fowler, help me—we have a minute left. Help me understand the decision-making process, if this is blocked under the 

Kingpin Act as drug trafficker’s assets rather than terrorist assets, 

even though the FARC has been designated a terrorist organization. 

Ms. FOWLER. So yes, the FARC is designated as a terrorist organization, but it is also designated by the President as a kingpin 

under the Kingpin Act. 

We have pursued designations of kingpin leadership and other 

elements of its financial and support network under the Kingpin 

Act. That is the authority that we use to go after drug trafficking 

activities globally, as I said in my statement. 

8 

We have been focused on depriving the FARC of its money-making capabilities, and that revolves around the drug trade. So, we 

have focused on our actions against the FARC under the Kingpin 

Act. 

There is also a robust law enforcement cooperation that goes on 

within the auspices of the Kingpin Act. We rely on information 

from law enforcement, from our partners domestically to carry out 

those designations. So that is how we have chosen to sort of dismantle their financial support network. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Okay. My time has expired. With that, the Chair 

recognizes Mr. Posey for 5 minutes. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Fowler, in your testimony you said—I am assuming that you oppose the legislation we 

are looking at now? 

Ms. FOWLER. We haven’t taken a position on the legislation. I am 

here to be a resource to provide information about potential consequences. But we haven’t taken a position yet. 

Mr. POSEY. So Treasury doesn’t care one way or the other? Is 

that correct? 

Ms. FOWLER. We are still assessing it. 

Mr. POSEY. When are you going to finish assessing it? It has 

been months and months and months. These victims have been 

looking to you for years to do something. When are you going to 

come up with an assessment? When are you going to really care 

one way or the other? 

Ms. FOWLER. We have provided— 

Mr. POSEY. If you don’t have an answer for that, that is okay. 

In your testimony you said this bill, by allowing these people to be 

eligible for compensation for being murdered and tortured, ‘‘could 

limit the Treasury’s ability to use blocked assets as leverage 

against dangerous groups such as’’ and you listed them. 

These people have been harmed by dangerous groups. Could you 

explain to me how letting these guys recover from narcotics dealers 

and terrorists is going to harm your ability to deal with other narcotics dealers and terrorists? 

Ms. FOWLER. So the amendment as drafted, what we would expect its application to include would be assets of non-terrorist-related drug trafficking groups, non-FARC-related groups. So groups 

like Los Atos and other groups in Central America that are involved in the direct distribution of drugs into the United States. 

That application would make assets that are not terrorist-related 

available to terrorist victims. That is the potential consequence. 

And as I said in my statement— 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. So, if I was just watching this on C-SPAN, I 

would think Treasury is more interested in protecting the assets of 

drug runners and terrorists than they are for compensating the victims of those people, and I think that is why it was set up originally under TRIA. 

My time is running short here. Mr. Miller, you talk about the variety of crimes that you all have provided—helped recover compensation for victims of Ponzi schemes, mail and wire fraud, health 

care fraud, identify theft, intellectual property and trademark violations. Since 2001, nearly $4 billion in forfeit. And those are 

crimes for which people should be compensated. 

9 

But I think above all of those are victims who have been physically tortured and murdered. And I think they should have some 

priority in this process. You said that the Justice Department won’t 

rest until they bring the perpetrators to justice. And you know, and 

I know, that you never will. 

So I would think the best thing that you could do is endorse at 

this time trying to get the victims compensated. And I should ask 

you to begin with, do you oppose this bill? 

Mr. MILLER. To begin, Congressman, I think this bill, as currently drafted, really doesn’t address Department of Justice equities directly. It is really more in the Department of the Treasury’s 

name. 

Mr. POSEY. Do you oppose it or support it? 

Mr. MILLER. We defer to the Department of the Treasury as it 

affects them. 

Mr. POSEY. And they don’t care one way or the other at this 

point, and you don’t care one way or the other at this point. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. MILLER. I wouldn’t put it that way, Congressman. The Department of Justice is, as I said, committed to bringing to justice 

the captors, and we have had some— 

Mr. POSEY. I know you never will, and I think you know in your 

heart you never will. And I would like to stick to this bill. You said 

you defer to the Treasury, and they say they really don’t care that 

they haven’t had time to possibly analyze this since 2002 and don’t 

know when they are going to be able to finish analyzing it. 

We are basically interested in solving problems up here. And nobody has come up with any other better idea to solve the problem. 

They have only come up with ways or objections or treading water 

to stop us from solving a problem, which is narcoterrorists murdering and torturing people without any remedy for the victims. 

Mr. MILLER. Congressman, as I think you know, we have 

charged over 15 defendants with these crimes. One of them has 

pled guilty and is due to be sentenced. At least, it is scheduled for 

next week. It may get pushed off, as I understand it, but I am not 

certain about that. But as of now, it is scheduled for next week. An 

additional defendant was sentenced to 60 years in prison. 

So I think we do continue to fight for justice in terms of actual 

prosecutions of the individuals involved in this offense, and I don’t 

think we view it as something that can never happen. We fight 

every day to make sure that it does happen. 

Mr. POSEY. Why would you want to block us from allowing these 

people to recover court-awarded damages from narcoterrorists? 

Mr. MILLER. I don’t think the Department’s position is that we 

look to stop people from obtaining restitution where we can fight 

to make that happen. We pursue restitution orders for terrorism 

victims in cases across the country. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. The gentleman’s time has expired. And in the interest of time, we have about 4 minutes left, I think, to vote. I’m 

sorry. My eyes are getting bad. I am trying to see the screen; 7 

minutes left of voting. And with that, we will recognize Mr. 

Mulvaney for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Thanks. And I will try and be ‘‘un-Southern’’ and 

talk fast for a little bit. Ms. Fowler, Mr. Miller, I am going to do 

10 

something unusual for a politician, which is admit to you in advance that I don’t know that much about what we are dealing with. 

So I am going to do something rare, and actually ask questions 

with a desire to simply learn about the topic. 

Ms. Fowler, you mentioned during your testimony, and I have it 

in front of me, that one of the—TRIA added Trading with the 

Enemy and IEEPA as this fund that victims could get to. And you 

say in your testimony that you are against adding Kingpin to that 

because it would limit your ability to use them as leverage. I don’t 

get that. Why was using Trading with the Enemy okay, and IEEPA 

okay, but Kingpin is not? 

Ms. FOWLER. The reality is that Kingpin was in place as law 

when TRIA was put in place as law. So— 

Mr. MULVANEY. Right. 

Ms. FOWLER. —I don’t know why it wasn’t brought in as part of 

that legislation. It is clearly not part of TRIA. The assets blocked, 

pursuant to the Kingpin Act, are not available to victims under 

TRIA. I didn’t say in my testimony that we oppose the amendment 

that is being proposed. We are still assessing it. What I have tried 

to do is explain what the potential consequences are, if this amendment goes through. And what we have seen is— 

Mr. MULVANEY. But you all didn’t oppose adding IEEPA and 

Trading with the Enemy, right? 

Ms. FOWLER. I really couldn’t speak to what our position was at 

that point. It was 10 years ago. 

Mr. MULVANEY. My notes say that you didn’t. So I am trying to 

figure out the distinction. What is the difference between these two 

things? Why is it okay to use IEEPA and TRIA, but not Kingpin? 

Ms. FOWLER. Under Kingpin—there are a variety of non-terrorist-related narcotics trafficking groups that are targeted under 

Kingpin. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Right. 

Ms. FOWLER. They are not involved in terrorist activity. What 

they are is motivated by profit. They are involved in this dangerous 

criminal activity that is bringing drugs into the United States. So 

they are not terrorist groups. The FARC, however, happens to be 

both a terrorist group and a drug-trafficking organization. So they 

are blocked under both authorities. What some of the testimony 

submitted today suggests is that any group that is involved in cocaine trade anywhere should be considered part of the FARC. 

Under our authorities, there are very clear definitions about who 

is part of the FARC and who is not. We have groups like Los Zetas, 

other groups in Honduras and Guatemala that are— 

Mr. MULVANEY. You mentioned that. And you say that the proposal could limit Treasury’s ability to use these blocked assets as 

leverage. 

Ms. FOWLER. For the assets that we have blocked for terrorist 

groups, there are many points of leverage that we have under our 

authorities. One point of leverage is the frozen assets that could be 

blocked in the United States. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Right. 

Ms. FOWLER. If you are a drug trafficker motivated by profit, you 

certainly want to regain access to the assets that are blocked. We 

have had examples over the years where drug traffickers or people 

11 

who are facilitating their financial activities, motivated by profit, 

are named under Kingpin. They find themselves exposed publicly 

for what they are doing, involved in criminal activity, supporting 

drug traffickers. They can’t do business in their host countries anymore. They can’t do business in the United States. They have no 

access to their assets. So every point of leverage we have under our 

authority is a way to convince these drug traffickers to disassociate 

from those activities—potentially and in many cases— 

Mr. MULVANEY. And I don’t want to cut you off. 

Ms. FOWLER. —typically law enforcement and help us in continuing investigations. 

Mr. MULVANEY. But— 

Ms. FOWLER. And that has been one of the benefits of this— 

Mr. MULVANEY. Right. But I guess my point is that drug traffickers are bad people, terrorists are bad people. It looks as though 

Treasury was okay with giving up that leverage against terrorists 

in TRIA, but not on Kingpin. I am trying to get a handle around 

the disparate impact, not only on, I guess on the law, but on the 

victims. It is almost like if you are a victim of a terrorist attack, 

we have systems set up to help people. But if you are a victim of 

a drug dealer, you are not. And that is what I am trying to get my 

hands around as to why Treasury sort of makes the distinction between the two. Shouldn’t we have consistency across those two 

things? 

Ms. FOWLER. I don’t think Treasury is making a distinction. 

TRIA makes a distinction. It doesn’t include Kingpin. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Right. By my understanding. And again, I could 

be wrong, and maybe you weren’t there. I certainly wasn’t here 

when TRIA was passed in 2002. But all the history that I have 

been presented with seems to say that Treasury supported the addition of IEEPA to TRIA. If I am wrong about that, then I am 

wrong about that. 

Ms. FOWLER. I am really—I’m sorry, I can’t speak to what our 

position was on that 10 years ago. 

Mr. MULVANEY. All right. Help me—either of you, what have you 

done to actually help the victims who are here today? I don’t have 

their names and I am sorry. Mr. Howes, Mr. Stansell, Mr. 

Gonsalves. What have we actually done to try and help these folks? 

Mr. MILLER. At the Department of Justice, as I said a few moments ago, we have been working very hard to bring to justice 

those who perpetrated crimes against the individuals who are here 

today. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Sure. And that helps everybody in the room, 

right? I am asking you specifically, what have you done to help 

these folks? 

Mr. MILLER. I think going after the people who harmed them and 

committed crimes against them is an important part, at least from 

the Department of Justice’s perspective, of how we go about helping victims. We think—our core mission is to prosecute the individuals who commit horrific crimes and to bring them to justice. And 

we stand committed to doing that in this case and in any other 

case. Through that process, we also pursue restitution. And where 

we can, we forfeit assets from the individuals who have committed 

12 

and the organizations that commit offenses. So that is what we do 

to try to look out for victims. And we work very hard on— 

Mr. MULVANEY. Again, Mr. Miller, I don’t know that much about 

the individual case, but I will ask the question, has restitution 

been made in this circumstance or not? 

Mr. MILLER. I believe that—my understanding is that the individuals who have, so far, been prosecuted had insufficient funds to 

satisfy, for example, the $300 judgment that has been entered. But 

we continue to work very hard to bring to justice those who were 

involved in the offenses. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Thank you. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. And with that—I have been an inattentive committee chairman. I am trying to figure out our votes here, so we 

did go a bit over time. But I think we can squeeze one more Member in. Mr. Stutzman from Indiana is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. STUTZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this time, I will 

yield to the gentleman from Florida. 

Mr. POSEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Just to follow up 

on Mr. Mulvaney’s question, the individuals whom you ultimately 

convict conveniently never have any assets by the time they are 

convicted, so they can make no restitution. Bernard Madoff, by the 

time he basically turned himself in, still had some assets that you 

were able to help get and give back to some of his victims. 

But I am concerned that there seems to be no interest in compensating the victims of narco-terrorism. You have the whole laundry list of white-collar crimes for which you have helped compensate the victims. And I just haven’t heard any justification yet. 

And I was hoping I would hear it today, if there was, in fact, a 

fair and realistic justification for not wanting to see the victims of 

narco-terrorists, people who were in prison for 51⁄2 years, people 

who were tortured, people who didn’t endure the torture and died, 

and their families. I think some restitution is due there and I see 

you two, right now, maybe wrongly, but I see you and your agencies for whatever reason, I don’t know, standing in the way of seeing justice for the victims. 

And I wish you would tell me why that is not true. I have heard 

you say, well, if we let the victims get the money, then we can’t 

use their assets to maybe stop them from doing something else. 

Freezing their assets, I think, is probably less beneficial to 

leveraging against terrorists and narcotics operations, less threatening to them than actually allowing a court-adjudicated access to 

it for victims that they have victimized. Wouldn’t you agree? 

Ms. FOWLER. Congressman, we are not opposed to victims having 

access to assets that are properly available for attachment under 

TRIA. The issue here is that Kingpin assets are not covered by 

TRIA. 

Mr. POSEY. All right. Repeat that. 

Ms. FOWLER. And in the case of the FARC— 

Mr. POSEY. Just repeat that, because I didn’t hear that very 

clearly. 

Ms. FOWLER. We are not opposed to assets that are properly 

available for attachment under TRIA being made available to victims. The issue here is the Kingpin Act assets are not covered by 

TRIA. 

13 

Mr. POSEY. And the— 

Ms. FOWLER. And in the case of the FARC, there are no assets 

in the United States that would be available to victims. 

Mr. POSEY. The argument is if we don’t have access—the argument is there is no good reason not to have them accessible under 

TRIA and under Kingpin. That is why we are here. We are here, 

saying, the system that is in place to compensate victims is not 

working. And we are here to try and fix that. We think people— 

American citizens, heroes, people who were imprisoned, tortured, 

murdered, trying to do the right thing for this country to protect 

the citizens of this country—we think we shouldn’t turn a deaf ear. 

And we think that it appears that we favor sometimes the people 

who perpetrated the crimes over the the victims. And you say, they 

are not covered under Kingpin, well, that is why we are here. We 

are trying to see that they are covered under Kingpin. They should 

be covered under Kingpin. And nobody is giving me one reason, 

compelling or even frivolous, why they shouldn’t be yet. 

Ms. FOWLER. What I am trying to do is explain that the amendment that we are currently discussing, as applied, would go far beyond FARC assets. It would go into other drug-trafficking organizations that have no relation to terrorism, no relation to the FARC, 

under our authorities. And those assets are a point of leverage that 

we have. They are one of many points of leverage that we have to 

try to dismantle those kinds of groups and prevent them from 

doing the kinds of things that the FARC has done to the victims 

in this case. 

Mr. POSEY. We don’t have time. And I am sure you can’t tell me 

the type of assets we are talking about. But I just don’t know how 

anybody could turn a blind eye to compensating the people who 

have suffered so much for trying to protect the people who work 

hard and play by the rules in this country to turn a blind eye to 

that. And I would think that Department of the Treasury and the 

Department of Justice would be advocating for anything that would 

help compensate our victims, not standing in the way of anything 

that would help these people seek a legal remedy that the courts 

have already ordered to be justified. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. The gentleman’s time is expiring. 

And with that, I would like to thank our panel of witnesses for 

their testimony today. 

I will note that you see a third microphone set up. The State Department was invited 2 weeks ago, but the State Department decided not to show up. And I find that personally very unfortunate. 

Again, I would like to extend my thanks to our panelists today. 

With that, we are going to recess until 5 minutes after this series 

of votes. 

[recess] 

Mr. HUIZENGA. The subcommittee will come to order. And I 

would like to now extend to our second panel a warm welcome. 

And again, I was remiss I think, in expressing specifically when 

I pulled in that first panel, but having learned a little bit about the 

story, my condolences to the family and the victims and those who 

have had to live through this. 

I had a political science major but a concentration in Latin American history and Latin American politics. And I studied the FARC, 

14 

and I have studied a lot of those things, those conflicts that have 

happened from the Sandinistas on down, and know how nasty 

those folks are. So again, just to the families and the victims, you 

are in our thoughts and prayers. 

So with that, I would like to extend a welcome to Mr. Tom 

Howes. And sir, you will be given 5 minutes. 

Each of you on the panel, as we talked about before, will be recognized for 5 minutes to give your oral presentation. And without 

objection, your written statements will be made a part of the 

record. 

And of course, the light that is in front of you on the table will 

start out green, go to yellow, and then turn red. When your time 

is up, please suspend. After your presentations, each Member up 

here will be given 5 minutes, and I understand we may have some 

other folks on their way as well, to ask questions. 

So with that, Mr. Howes, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS R. HOWES, VICTIM OF 

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM 

Mr. HOWES. Good morning. My name is Tom Howes. I am a U.S. 

citizen living in Congressman Posey’s district. 

I was a copilot flying a Department of Defense counter-narcotic 

surveillance mission in Colombia when we went down in FARC territory. The FARC executed our pilot, Tom Janis, a former Delta 

Force member. 

I was held hostage for 51⁄2 years, during which time I was tortured, chained, and starved. My fellow hostages, Keith Stansell and 

Marc Gonsalves, are also here today. We were awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom for our services 

and sacrifice to the country. 

We sued the FARC under the Anti-Terrorism Act, and in 2010 

the Federal court in Tampa awarded us a judgment against the 

FARC and 80 individual FARC leaders. The FARC itself has no 

blocked assets in the United States. Foreign terrorist organizations 

do not open bank accounts in their own name. Instead, they operate through drug trafficking, partner cartels, and their money 

launderers, the kingpins. 

In 1995, President Clinton declared a national emergency of cocaine traffickers centered in Colombia. Blocking narco-trafficker assets in an Executive Order under Congress, the International 

Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which we talked about 

earlier today. 

TRIA authorizes terrorism victim judgment holders to execute on 

the blocked assets of agencies or instrumentalities of the terrorist 

party, even though the agency or instrumentality itself is not 

named in the judgment. TRIA allows us to execute on IEEPA assets, but not assets blocked under the Kingpin Act. 

The Kingpin Act of 1999 is modeled on IEEPA and expanded 

sanctions worldwide, not just on Colombian traffickers under 

IEEPA. The FARC and its leaders are all designated under the 

Kingpin Act, not under IEEPA. 

Since 2010, the Administration has blocked all narco-trafficking 

assets under the Kingpin Act instead of IEEPA. In 2013, the 11th 

15 

Circuit Court ruled that assets blocked under the Kingpin Act were 

not included in TRIA’s definition of blocked assets. 

So we lost the money and it went back to the former FARC 

money launderer. We made several requests to Justice and Treasury for administrative relief, and all our requests were denied. 

The BASTA Act corrects this injustice by adding the Kingpin Act 

blocked assets to the list of blocked assets under TRIA. It makes 

no sense that TRIA allows terrorism victims to seize terrorist 

narco-trafficker assets blocked under one Act of Congress, IEEPA, 

but not assets blocked on another Act of Congress, the Kingpin Act. 

BASTA will have no effect on the government’s ability to designate, extradite, convict, and forfeit blocked assets of drug kingpins. In fact, allowing terrorism victims to go after narco-trafficker 

assets will only increase the Administration’s leverage because the 

blocked parties will want to be delisted as fast as possible. 

We have repeatedly asked Treasury to reclassify FARC assets to 

allow us to seize them, but were either ignored or denied. There 

is no administrative solution, and legislative action is necessary. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Howes can be found on page 45 

of the appendix.] 

Mr. HUIZENGA. We will now recognize Mr. Doug Farah. And sir, 

you have 5 minutes as well. 

STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS FARAH, PRESIDENT, IBI 

CONSULTANTS LLC 

Mr. FARAH. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, thank 

you for this opportunity to testify about FARC in Colombia, the 

world’s premier hybrid terrorist drug trafficking organization. 

I have had the privilege of being deeply involved in Colombia 

since 1989. And over the past quarter of a century, I have lived in 

Colombia for a number of years, and I visit there regularly. 

The FARC, despite ongoing peace talks with the government of 

President Juan Manuel Santos, remains at the center of a multitude of criminal enterprises and terrorist activities that stretch 

from Colombia to Argentina and northward to Central America 

into direct ties with the Mexican drug cartel, primarily the Sinaloa 

organization. It is involved in the massive laundering of drug 

money, and recent cases by the Drug Enforcement Administration 

have shown direct and growing criminal ties between the FARC, 

Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations. 

The Treasury Department representative earlier pointed out that 

if we try to tie all the drug trafficking back to the FARC—I would 

say that if there is one grocery store in the neighborhood, everybody goes there to buy groceries. And the DEA tells us that at least 

80 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States is fabricated by the FARC. So yes, I think you can tie a great deal of 

the drug trafficking organizations directly to the FARC production. 

The FARC is one of only three organizations in the world that 

is designated by the U.S. Government as both a major drug trafficking organization and an international terrorist entity. The European Union, Canada, and other countries share this assessment. 

And they have been designated in part initially as a terrorist orgaVerDate Nov 24 2008 18:17 Nov 20, 2014 Jkt 091157 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\91157.TXT TERRI
16 

nization because of the execution of U.S. citizens, something that 

is often forgotten. 

In 1993 and 1994, in different incidents, they kidnapped 6 U.S. 

missionaries, and killed them all while in captivity. In March 1999, 

the FARC abducted three Native American activists and killed 

them as well, on the spot. And of course, we have the incident that 

brought us here today with these gentlemen who were serving 

their country and were taken hostage by the FARC for 51⁄2 years. 

In 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the FARC was designated 

as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organization, which 

gave expanded power to the government to go after them. And in 

2003, they were designated under the Kingpin Act. 

Under the protection of the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, 

Nicaragua, Bolivia, and El Salvador, the FARC now maintains a 

robust international infrastructure that is producing and moving 

thousands of kilos of cocaine and laundering hundreds of millions 

of dollars. It has emerged as a pioneer hybrid criminal terrorist insurgency. 

The FARC is a central part of the revolutionary project that is 

bringing together armed groups and terrorist organizations under 

the umbrella of the Bolivarian Revolution with the aid and support 

of Iran. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets 

Control, which has carried out at least 18 designations of FARC entities, describes the group as a narco-terrorist entity. 

There is now a significant body of evidence showing the FARC’s 

operational alliance with Hezbollah and Hezbollah-based allies and 

other terrorist organizations in the region. A clear example of the 

breadth of the emerging alliances among criminal and terrorist organizations is Operation Titan, executed by Colombian and U.S. officials in 2008. 

They found, after a 2-year investigation, that they were able to 

dismantle the drug trafficking organization that stretched from Colombia to Panama, Mexico, West Africa, the United States, and the 

Middle East. The cocaine path used in that massive network was 

mostly derived from the FARC. 

Colombian and U.S. officials say that one of the key money 

launderers in the structure, Chekry Harb, aka ‘‘Taliban’’ acted as 

a central go-between among Latin American drug-trafficking organizations selling FARC-produced cocaine, and Middle East radical 

groups. 

There has been little public acknowledgement of the Hezbollah 

ties to Latin American transnational criminal organizations. But 

recent indictments based on U.S. DEA cases point to the growing 

overlap of these groups. 

In December 2011, U.S. officials charged Ayman Joumaa, an accused Lebanese drug kingpin and Hezbollah financier, with smuggling tons of FARC-made cocaine to the United States, and laundering hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of the Zetas cartel 

in Mexico, while operating in Panama, West Africa, and elsewhere. 

Joumaa was tied to a broader case of massive money laundering 

that led to the collapse of the Lebanese Canadian Bank, one of the 

primary financial institutions used by Hezbollah to finance its 

worldwide activities. 

17 

Other cases include the July 6, 2009, indictment of Jamal Yousef 

in the U.S. Southern District Court of New York, alleging the defendant, a former Syrian military officer arrested in Honduras, was 

seeking to sell weapons to the FARC, exchanging those weapons for 

cocaine, with the weapons coming initially from Hezbollah. 

The FARC is an unusual hybrid criminal terrorist organization 

that is among the largest cocaine producers in the world, deriving 

an increasing amount of its revenue from relationships with multiple terrorist and criminal organizations. The FARC maintains 

documented ties to Hezbollah, the ETA Basque separatist movement, armed remnants of the IRA, and various armed groups in 

Latin America. It has maintained ties to state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran and Muammar Gaddafi when he ruled Libya. 

It also maintains well-documented ties to the Sinaloa cartel and 

into computers when they killed another senior leader of the 

FARC. They have found photos of Sinaloa cartel leaders sitting 

around drinking whiskey in parties with senior FARC leadership. 

There is no doubt that there is a direct link there. 

The ideological underpinnings of the FARC are Marxism and 

deeply anti-American. And the veneer of ideology that formed the 

basis of the relationship with Chavez and other terrorist organizations is now finally coming to light. 

I will leave it there. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Farah can be found on page 28 

of the appendix.] 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

You have submitted quite an extensive written testimony as well 

on that, and I appreciate it. 

And with that, we will go to Mr. Steven Perles for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF STEVEN R. PERLES, FOUNDER AND SENIOR 

PARTNER, PERLES LAW FIRM, PC 

Mr. PERLES. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. With your permission, I will submit my written testimony for the record. And frankly, carry on from where Mr. Mulvaney left off. 

Before I do that, if I might very briefly introduce Mr. Chandler 

Derbyshire to you. Mr. Derbyshire is my summer intern. His uncle, 

Captain Vince Smith, was killed in the Beirut Marines barracks 

bombing. His grandfather, General Keith Smith, was the organizer 

of what is now known as the Beirut Marines Barracks Bombing 

litigation, in which we have used TRIA as a vehicle for restraining 

in excess of $1.8 billion of Iranian securities positions that were illicitly transiting New York. 

I would also like to introduce my son, who is with me. I sent him 

out to Michigan to get an education. And he served on the staff of 

Senator Mark Kirk as a Senate Fellow in China Policy, using his 

Mandarin language fluency to hunt Iranian assets in China for 

Senator Kirk. 

Let me really start where Congressman Mulvaney left off and 

talk about how the process should work, rather than what everybody else has been talking about today, and that is what is broken 

and not working. And let me put this in a context of first the Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing matter. 

18 

Then-Under Secretary Levy and I discussed the potential for 

seizing Iranian securities positions in New York that were outside 

his scope of authority to seize, but for which he had intelligence 

data. So effectively, we formed a public-private partnership. And 

under that partnership, we sent the Treasury a subpoena. 

The Treasury obtained a protective order from the court system 

so that the intelligence data would be constrained in its public dissemination. And we used that intelligence data to seize Iranian assets in New York. 

As part of that discovery process, we have now obtained in excess 

of 100,000 pages of material about the movement of Iranian securities positions through the U.S. banking system. The government in 

turn issued us a subpoena. And we are actually under grand jury 

subpoena in the southern district in New York. So we turned all 

of our discovery material over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

The net effect of this public-private partnership is that the victims get compensated and the government winds up with intelligence data that it didn’t otherwise have. That is the way the system should work. 

In another case there was a man from Michigan, Jack Armstrong, who was publicly beheaded on Al Jazeera television at the 

beginning of the Gulf War. We obtained a judgment for the Armstrong family against the government of Syria, the material supporter of Al Qaeda in Iraq at the time of the beheading. 

And again, we started this public-private partnership with the 

Treasury under TRIA where we issued what I would call a friendly 

subpoena to the Treasury. They turned data over to us. We secured 

something in excess of $80 million of Syrian blocked assets in the 

United States. 

And that process is just winding up now. We in turn will take 

a portion of that money and reinvest it into asset location exercises. 

And when those exercises are complete, we will voluntarily turn all 

of that data back over to the government. 

Again, you really want to have this public-private partnership 

where we get data, we start the process, that process brings in 

data, and we turn it back to the government so that the victim’s 

interests are advanced and the government’s interests are advanced. 

I see very little merit in this notion that the government’s interests are different than the interests of private citizenry. It doesn’t 

have to be that way. That is a cultural gap which exists between 

the executive and the private bar. 

It certainly existed in 2000, when we really started this process 

for terror victims. And over the last 10 or 15 years, at least in the 

world of terror victims, a lot of those culture barriers between the 

private bar and the government have really broken down so that 

we are in very good shape in terms of going out and assisting each 

other. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Perles can be found on page 70 

of the appendix.] 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Okay. The gentleman’s time has expired. And 

with that, I recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning. 

19 

So, Mr. Perles, just to make sure I am understanding you, this 

PPP that you were talking about, this hybrid public-private partnership that has worked previously is not happening now. Correct? 

Mr. PERLES. Not in the case— 

Mr. HUIZENGA. In this particular case. 

Mr. PERLES. —of FARC and FARC assets. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Why do you believe that it is not? And is that 

something viable that should be pursued? 

Mr. PERLES. I don’t make public policy here. I am really a technician. But if you are asking as a policy matter, would I like to see 

it pursued, yes. I think— 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Is there—okay. So let me sharpen it. Is there any 

reason why we couldn’t or shouldn’t be doing that in this case? 

Mr. PERLES. No. Actually, I would encourage you to do it. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Or encourage Treasury to do that. 

Mr. PERLES. Encourage Treasury to do it. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Do you need to have a willing Treasury to be able 

to do that? 

Mr. PERLES. You need either a willing Treasury or a willing Congress. 

In the first instance, I would hope that Treasury would do it voluntarily. From what I heard today, the mindset of Treasury is very 

much like the mindset we saw at the State Department in 1998, 

1999, and 2000, which is that they want their blocked assets for 

other purposes. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Other projects? 

Mr. PERLES. Right, other projects. I think in 1998 it was really 

more the legacy of Jimmy Carter’s negotiation of the Algiers Accord 

facilitating the release of the Tehran hostages. State wanted that 

money in order to be able to bribe out the release of American diplomats. 

I happened to be on the Senate staff at the time that agreement 

was negotiated. I didn’t care for it then and I don’t care for it now. 

I don’t think it is an appropriate way for the United States to conduct— 

Mr. HUIZENGA. In your opinion, is BASTA a bill that is careful 

to avoid unintended consequences? 

Mr. PERLES. I think it is. I was actually quite flattered when 

Congressman Posey’s office called me and asked me if I would give 

some pro bono time to reviewing the bill. 

I have not gone through the current draft. I have gone through 

several early iterations of the bill. I think it is very narrowly focused. 

I would encourage the committee to seek other people’s views. 

You have to be very careful here not to do anything unintended. 

As far as I know, the bill does not do anything unintended. I would 

still seek other people’s opinions. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Mr. Howes, again, thank you for being here. And 

I am sure I could tell just as you were starting to talk about it, 

this must be very difficult to relive and to talk about. But it is an 

important story, so thank you for sharing that. 

But would you please describe your efforts to receive compensation for your treatment by the FARC and kind of what you have 

gone through so far? 

20 

Mr. HOWES. We have done a number of things. We started out 

in 2010, 2011. We made three separate requests for crime victim 

relief for the Justice Department, and everything was denied. 

In 2013, we made another 3 separate requests to the Treasury 

Department to get license to execute on blocked kingpin assets of 

seven FARC—or the instrument agencies or instrumentalities. One 

of them was a FARC commander. Everything was again denied. 

And we asked the Treasury to re-designate the kingpin—these 

kingpins under IEEPA. Again, denied. And the LFAC response 

was—I have it here—that LFAC does not respond to requests to 

designate individuals or entities pursuant to certain authorities. It 

was basically ignored or denied, I guess you could say. 

And we have also provided copies of all this information, of the 

Administration’s denials here for the record. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Do you believe that there is sufficient evidence 

that FARC or those commanders and those designated people have 

assets to be able to go and seize? Or are we going to have to go 

at them through other drug kingpins who may have assets here as 

well? 

Mr. HOWES. I think for the FARC themselves, it is fairly difficult. 

As I mentioned earlier, they don’t put bank accounts— 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Yes. 

Mr. HOWES. —and that sort of thing together. It is mostly the 

agencies and instrumentalities that handle the money for the 

FARC. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. But certain individuals could? 

Mr. HOWES. Certainly. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. And do you know of any that have or do have 

those kinds of assets? 

Mr. HOWES. As far as the— 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Agents’ role. 

Mr. HOWES. —instrumentalities of the FARC? 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Those individuals. Those commanders or— 

Mr. HOWES. There were seven that we looked at here. And we 

were denied on all of them under the Kingpin Act, so yes. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Okay. 

My time has expired. The Chair recognizes Mr. Posey for 5 minutes of questioning. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

The written testimony for today’s hearing is compelling. It is 

lengthy. It is highly detailed, technically perfect as far as I can see. 

And it really gives a lot of insight into a system that is just not 

working right and not working as it was intended. 

In fairness, I think DOJ should be commended for their ability 

to track the assets. That is not simple. That is good intel work, 

hard work. And their persistence in trying to bring many of these 

criminals to justice has taken many, many years. 

It took I guess maybe 11 years to get one of the guys who was 

responsible for Mr. Howes. And it just took a lot of persistence and 

I want to commend DOJ for that. 

But it is troubling that it appears to me that the Executive 

Branch would enter into a lawsuit in which they were not originally a party. Is that correct, Mr. Howes? Did you have a lawsuit 

in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and did the agency inject 

21 

itself into the lawsuit at that point? Or had they already been a 

party to it? 

Mr. HOWES. I believe they injected themselves into it. 

Mr. POSEY. Yes. 

Mr. HOWES. Yes. 

Mr. POSEY. Yes. We have a law-abiding American citizen, a victim of narcotics trafficking terrorists, and somebody who has been 

imprisoned by them, tortured by them, and watched a senior colleague be murdered by them. And he is trying to get justice against 

the criminals. 

And if I read this correctly, the Executive Branch jumped in and 

challenged the definition of blocked asset, which really kind of was 

the first big rock thrown into the cause here to stop the process 

from functioning probably as it intended. Am I reading this correctly? 

Mr. HOWES. Yes. 

Mr. POSEY. It is a stretch for anyone to wonder why an agency 

would do that. You know why they would do that? Their logic that 

well, if we control all their blocked assets, it harms them more 

than people whom they have harmed getting some of those assets. 

I see with blocked assets—if I am a bad guy and you block my 

assets, at some point, someday I may be able to recover them. 

Maybe a technicality in the court of law or whatever, transform 

somehow. 

But if people I have harmed are allowed, through the courts, absolutely proper, legal jurisdiction to get those assets, I think that 

probably hurts the narcotics trafficker and terrorist more than just 

having his assets blocked. Does that seem like a logical conclusion? 

Do any of the witnesses disagree with that? 

Mr. HOWES. It certainly should. It seems the opposite of having 

these assets returned to actual drug launderers and drug traffickers. 

Mr. POSEY. Yes. 

And so the next question is, what happens—what are the different things that happen to blocked assets? Does anybody know? 

Did they just stay blocked forever until they maybe arrest and convict the guy? 

And then what happens to the assets if they are convicted? 

Maybe— 

Mr. HOWES. In one case, and I think we have the record on file, 

but a percentage of it is returned to the drug trafficker, money 

launderer, returned to them. 

Mr. POSEY. Does the agency keep any of the money? Does anybody know? Mr. Perles? 

Mr. PERLES. I can’t answer that question with respect to FARC 

assets because I don’t practice in that area. 

I think a good example, though, is the case of Libya. Libya saw 

a whole series of lawsuits marching in its direction, whether it was 

Lockerbie, which was one of my cases, or Libya’s bombing with the 

La Belle discotheque, which was one of my cases. 

And the total reparations paid by Libya to U.S. citizens I suspect 

was in excess of $3 billion. Those reparations were paid because 

Libya understood at the end of the day its blocked assets in the 

22 

United States were going to be used to satisfy impending judgments. 

When the United States and Libya reached an agreement and 

those reparations were paid, the United States then released 

Libya’s governmental blocked assets as part of the normalization 

agreement between the United States and Libya. 

Mr. POSEY. Was the entire $3 billion awarded to victims? 

Mr. PERLES. The $3 billion represented prejudgment settlements 

between Libya and the U.S. victims, and parties were paid. That 

is correct. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Sorry. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

But without objection from the panelists, we wanted to do a second round of— 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. —questioning. I know I have some questions as 

well. So, if that is all right with our panelists who have time, then 

all is good on this side as well. So, granting myself 5 minutes here. 

Mr. Farah, your testimony says that FARC is ‘‘under the protection of the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.’’ And certainly all of them have had their own issues over the 

years. How well-documented is that ‘‘protection?’’ Is it well-documented enough to describe these governments as instrumentalities 

of FARC with assets to go after there or to block? 

Mr. FARAH. Thank you. I think that is a really interesting question. 

The documentation on Venezuela is overwhelming. And we have, 

including OFAC designations of very senior Venezuelan officials for 

both their relationship with the FARC and drug trafficking. At 

least six of Chavez—when he was alive, Chavez posted his advisors 

were designated. And they continue to be very powerful in the current administration of Nicolas Maduro. 

Bolivia, I think again the evidence is overwhelming. I think you 

have to understand that to the Bolivarian system, set up by Chavez, which was his goal of creating a united Bolivarian set of nations, the FARC was due to the primary instrument for achieving 

that. 

And he supported very openly the FARC as an armed movement, 

and called for other armed groups to join an armed insurrection 

against the democratic countries in the region, and chose to use his 

oil mine to finance the election of Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, and 

then Daniel Ortega. 

So I think that if you understand the FARC is in their view an 

instrument of foreign policy, which their support for the groups is 

I think overwhelming, especially if you look at the documentation 

that comes from captured FARC documents in the Raul Reyes computer and in the Armando Hahoy computers where you have the 

internal communication of the FARC discussing in great detail the 

relationships with Bolivia, with Correa, with Chavez, where they 

specifically ask President Correa, for example, in Ecuador to move 

certain commanders from the border area because they were being 

too aggressive against the FARC. 

And they write back and say sure, we will move. Who would you 

like to see placed there? That is a pretty direct relationship. 

23 

Mr. HUIZENGA. But that would need to be proven in court, I 

would assume. 

Mr. FARAH. The court—the documents showing that exists, and 

actually in that particular case, are a matter of public record and 

have been published. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Okay. 

Mr. Perles, what do you think of this sort of line and—obviously 

FARC is not a state or a country, per se, which is what your previous lawsuits had been trying to do, correct, tie that in with that 

sponsorship? And wouldn’t permanently attaching funds of FARC 

instrumentalities be noticeably different for state sponsors somehow? What are your thoughts on this? 

Mr. PERLES. I don’t see any interference between the kind of litigation that I bring against state sponsors and expanding TRIA— 

you are asking me, if I understood the question properly, do I see 

any potential conflict between the kind of litigation that I brought 

against state sponsors of terrorism and expanding TRIA to include 

the FARC. And the answer is, I don’t see any conflict at all. 

The whole notion of TRIA really goes back to an Iranian weapons 

account that we tried to seize on behalf of the family of Alisa 

Flatow who was killed in a bus bombing in Israel, Matt Eisenfeld 

who was killed in a bus bombing in Israel, Sarah Duker who was 

killed in a bus bombing in Israel, and Father Lawrence Martin 

Jenco who was taken hostage in Beirut, Lebanon. 

This litigation really occurred in the late 1990s. And we heard 

many of the same objections from the State Department that I listened to this morning. 

Congress passed legislation called the Victims Act 2000, which 

freed up this weapons account or these families. And then went on 

2 years later and fixed the problem generically in TRIA. 

The U.S. Government has historically taken the position that 

when an asset is blocked, the mantle of U.S. Governmental immunity protects that asset. So that even if a terrorist state had lost 

its immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, we still 

couldn’t pierce through to that asset because of U.S. Governmental 

immunity. 

TRIA really fixes that immunity question. I look at TRIA as a 

congressional waiver of the government’s immunity when it holds 

blocked assets. The same thing would be true for FARC assets. 

And if you look at it from that perspective, there is just no potential interference or collision between the enforcement of a judgment 

against a terrorist state against a blocked terrorist state asset or 

a judgment against FARC under ATA against a blocked FARC 

asset. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Thank you. I appreciate that perspective. 

And with that, I will grant 5 minutes to Mr. Posey for questioning. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am still trying to get my arms around why the government 

would block recovery by an American citizen who has been harmed 

by a foreign terrorist group. It is still hard to grasp that we would 

do that. 

24 

And we tend to want to look at consent decrees again, how much 

of the seized assets at the end of the day ever go to the victims, 

and how much is gobbled up by the Federal agencies. 

I have asked DOJ for a list of consent decrees before and they 

were not forthcoming so they didn’t have time to tell me the details. So it will be a while, but eventually we will get them. 

And a question for Mr. Howes, what did you do to petition the 

Treasury to change their designation of FARC assets and FARC 

agent instrumentality assets from Kingpin to IEEPA so that you 

can seize assets under TRIA? 

Mr. HOWES. We made the request to re-designate the kingpin accounts, but we were turned down. 

Mr. POSEY. Okay. 

Mr. HOWES. Does that answer your question? 

Mr. POSEY. All right. When you go after FARC assets, do you 

claim that every blocked narco-trafficking asset blocked under 

Kingpin is subject to seizure? Or are you careful about who you go 

after? 

Mr. HOWES. We are certainly careful who we go after. We go 

after only blocked assets of the foreign kingpin narco-traffickers 

which the Federal court determines are agencies or instrumentalities of the FARC. 

We don’t go after, for example, kingpins who do not traffic in 

FARC cocaine. We don’t go after narcotics traffickers that traffic 

drugs for the Taliban. So it is specific to instrumentalities and 

agencies of the FARC. 

Mr. POSEY. I read your testimony and it is—it really could be a 

great mystery novel, a whodunit, because it is really difficult for 

anyone who reads this to understand why the Federal Government 

would block you. It is a mystery. 

I can’t imagine the thought that, again, the Federal Government 

would have more ability to work against traffickers if they don’t let 

you recover their assets for the crimes they committed. Did they 

ever give you any logical explanation for that? 

Mr. HOWES. No. And again, the court—there was a judgment in 

our favor by the court. And yet it feels like we are blocked by the 

Department of Justice and the Treasury. It is a mystery to us. 

Mr. POSEY. Mr. Chairman, I am just bedazzled over this whole 

thing. And I have a lot of questions that I would like to ask the 

Treasury and DOJ again. Maybe, we could think about bringing 

them back in here. 

Sometimes when we have the government witnesses first, we 

hear some things that really make a lot less sense after we hear 

from the second panel of private sector witnesses. And this is another one of those cases. 

The testimony and discussion with these gentlemen has generated a significant number of questions that I would like to address to Treasury and DOJ again. And normally, I would just write 

them a letter and ask for a response, but I have been relatively unsuccessful in getting information in that manner before. And in 

some instances, it takes 9 months to get an answer to a relatively 

simple question that I have asked a Federal agency. 

25 

So, I would like to have a discussion with you about maybe extending this hearing for another round. I yield back, and I thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. The gentleman yields back. And we of course do 

have an opportunity for you to do some things here on the official 

side. 

But I would like to thank our witnesses for being here today. It 

has been very illuminating, and I think frustrating, for a number 

of us to hear your testimony, and some of the answers that we 

have had are non-answers that we have had to what has been 

going on from our own government. 

And again, Mr. Howes, and to the other gentlemen, we appreciate your perseverance and your willingness to come and join us 

today, and share this amazing story. And we offer blessings and 

prayers for the best for each of you as you move forward. 

Mr. POSEY. Mr. Chairman, may I add one more comment? 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Without objection. 

Mr. POSEY. Today, we are talking about an injustice that has 

been done to one of my constituents and two of his colleagues. 

If you could see what is happening in the narcotics trafficking 

world—I had an occasion to go visit the border at Nogales earlier 

this year, and I was overwhelmed by the conditions that are there, 

the narcotics trafficking, the human trafficking, the arms trafficking that is going unabated. 

The reality is that it is becoming more and more prevalent in 

this country. It is permeating us more and more and more every 

day. And while we just see 51⁄2 years of imprisonment and torture 

from my constituent in South America today, tomorrow it could be 

your constituent or any Member’s constituent in this country. 

If you could see what I have seen about how the narcotics traffickers, the cartels, deal with people who get in their way or don’t 

cooperate with them, it is chilling. It is frightening. And it is a 

threat to every man, woman, and child in the United States of 

America. 

While we may be talking about justice for three gentlemen today, 

this could affect any man, woman, or child in the United States of 

America in the coming years. 

And I again want to thank you, applaud you and Mr. Hensarling 

for addressing this issue to do whatever we can to man up or try 

and stop the flow of terror that goes with narcotics coming into this 

country, and saluting the gentlemen who try to do something about 

it. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Thank you. And I appreciate your bringing this 

to everyone’s attention and to light. 

The Chair notes that some Members may have additional questions for this panel, which they may wish to submit in writing. 

Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days to submit extraneous 

materials to the Chair for inclusion in the record. 

Without objection, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:44 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(27) 

A P P E N D I X 

July 17, 2014 

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