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[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1076 Enrolled Bill (ENR)]

        H.R.1076

                     One Hundred Eighteenth Congress

                                 of the

                        United States of America

                          AT THE SECOND SESSION

         Begun and held at the City of Washington on Wednesday,
         the third day of January, two thousand and twenty-four

                                 An Act

 
 To require the Comptroller General of the United States to carry out a 
study on the trafficking into the United States of synthetic drugs, and 
            related illicit finance, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ``Preventing the Financing of Illegal 
Synthetic Drugs Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
    The Congress finds the following:
        (1) According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 
    over 107,000 people in the United States died from drug overdoses 
    or drug poisonings in the 12-month period ending January 2022, with 
    67 percent of those deaths involving synthetic opioids like 
    fentanyl.
        (2) According to the United National Office of Drugs and Crime 
    (UNODC) in its ``Synthetic Drug Strategy 2021-2025'', the number of 
    synthetic drugs, also called New Psychoactive Substances, has 
    increased 631 percent since 2009, with traffickers introducing an 
    average of 80 new substances to the illicit drug market each year 
    from 2009-2019.
        (3) In October 2022, F. Michael McDaniel, director of the 
    Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HITDA) program 
    testified in Congress that one kilogram of fentanyl can produce one 
    million counterfeit pills containing one milligram of fentanyl, 
    saying, ``Currently in Houston, Texas, you can buy a kilogram of 
    fentanyl for an average price of $25,000 to $30,000. This same 
    kilogram of fentanyl in Culiacan (Mexico) could be purchased at an 
    average price of $13,500. Currently, the price of a fentanyl pill 
    in Houston ranges from $6 to $65. Therefore, an illicit investment 
    of $30,000 or less could result in a return of $6 to $32.5 
    million.''.
        (4) According to Celina B. Realuyo, Adjunct Professor, The 
    George Washington University Elliott School of International 
    Affairs, in March 2022 Congressional testimony, ``Financing is 
    essential to support and sustain the command and control, 
    personnel, arms, communications, logistics and operations of 
    organized crime groups. For this reason, following the money trail 
    and depriving criminals of illicit financial flows can disrupt and 
    disable these networks.''.
SEC. 3. GAO STUDY ON SYNTHETIC DRUGS TRAFFICKING.
    (a) Study.--The Comptroller General of the United States shall 
carry out a study on illicit financing in connection with the 
trafficking of synthetic drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, 
fentanyl- and methamphetamine-related substances, Captagon, and 
fentanyl and methamphetamine precursors, including--
        (1) the business of the trafficking of synthetic drugs and 
    related illicit finance, such as the participation of transnational 
    criminal organizations and terror syndicates and their notable 
    trafficking corridors, including source and transit countries;
        (2) the business models used by these transnational criminal 
    organizations, including U.S. domestic and foreign activities for 
    precursor purchase or production, movement along the supply chain, 
    manufacture of the completed product, marketing, distribution, 
    sales, and return of proceeds;
        (3) the overlap of the business model of human trafficking and 
    the trafficking of synthetic drugs and related illicit finance;
        (4) the use of online illicit drug markets and the use of 
    social media for the marketing, sale, and payment for synthetic 
    drugs;
        (5) financial methods used by such transnational criminal 
    organizations, including--
            (A) payment;
            (B) money laundering; and
            (C) repatriation of proceeds;
        (6) the use of social media applications like Snap Chat, 
    Discord, and Facebook and payment applications like CashApp to 
    facilitate financial transactions for synthetic drug trafficking, 
    especially among young people; and
        (7) U.S. Government activities to combat illicit finance 
    related to the trafficking of synthetic drugs, including--
            (A) interagency collaboration, including personnel detailed 
        to other agencies to support the effort to combat synthetic 
        drugs trafficking and related illicit finance;
            (B) intergovernmental collaboration;
            (C) intersectoral collaboration with the private sector, 
        including the business and non-governmental communities; and
            (D) identified gaps or resource deficiencies in combating 
        the trafficking of synthetic drugs and related illicit finance 
        in the coordination and collaboration activities described in 
        subparagraphs (A) through (C).
    (b) Report Required.--Not later than the end of the 1-year period 
beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General 
shall issue a report to the Congress containing all findings and 
determinations made in carrying out the study required under subsection 
(a).

                               Speaker of the House of Representatives.

                            Vice President of the United States and    
                                               President of the Senate.
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