U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

72–447 DTP WASHINGTON : 2001

COMBATING MONEY LAUNDERING

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 23, 2000

Serial No. 106–224

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

LISA SMITH ARAFUNE, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman

BOB BARR, Georgia

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

DOUG OSE, California

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

SHARON PINKERTON, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

ANDREW RICHARDSON, Professional Staff Member

RYAN MCKEE, Clerk

MICHEAL YEAGER, Minority Professional Staff Member

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 23, 2000 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Baker, Raymond W., Center for International Policy; and Kenneth W.

Rijock, aviation and financial crime consultant ......................................... 101

Warren, Mary Lee, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice; William F. Wechsler, special advisor to

the Secretary and Deputy Secretary for Money Laundering, U.S. Department of the Treasury; John C. Varrone, Acting Deputy Assistant

Commissioner, Office of Investigations, U.S. Customs Service, Department of Treasury; Edward M. Guillen, Chief, Financial Operations

Section, Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Justice; and

James F. Sloan, director, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ......... 13

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Baker, Raymond W., Center for International Policy, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 104

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 10

Guillen, Edward M., Chief, Financial Operations Section, Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Justice, prepared statement of ..... 77

Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida:

Report from the trenches .......................................................................... 5

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 7

Rijock, Kenneth W., aviation and financial crime consultant, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 115

Sloan, James F., director, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 83

Varrone, John C., Acting Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Office of Investigations, U.S. Customs Service, Department of Treasury, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 59

Warren, Mary Lee, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, prepared statement of .................................. 17

Wechsler, William F., special advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary for Money Laundering, U.S. Department of the Treasury, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 49

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COMBATING MONEY LAUNDERING

FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY,

AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Mica, Cummings, Mink, Kucinich, and

Schakowsky.

Staff present: Sharon Pinkerton, staff director and chief counsel;

Steve Dillingham, special counsel; Frank Edrington, professional

staff member; Ryan McKee, clerk; Sarah Despres, minority counsel;

and Earley Green, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I’d like to call the Subcommittee on

Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources to order.

This morning we have a subcommittee hearing entitled Combating Money Laundering Worldwide. We are going to proceed, and I’ll

be joined shortly by other Members.

But we have a full schedule. We’re going to have some votes, and

we want to try to get as much business in as we can and proceed

with regular order. And the order of business will be first, I will

provide an opening statement and then will yield to other Members

as they arrive or submit their statements in the record.

Today, the subcommittee will examine the subject of money laundering and how it works internationally as the financing engine

that drives most of the world’s illegal drug trade. Money laundering is defined as the process by which money is derived from illegal

activities and is transformed or laundered to make it appear legitimate. Once it’s been laundered, this money can be moved and used

as capital for further investments in illegal or in legal activities.

Of particular concern to this subcommittee is the fact that money

laundering is a critical element of the criminal activities of drug

traffickers. Through the money laundering mechanism, criminals

move illegal proceeds of their drug deals and profits through the

international financial system to wash away the criminal taint of

that money, and then reinvest the illegal proceeds in new drug

deals.

Other kinds of criminal organizations launder money as well,

like that, unfortunately of human smugglers and corrupt officials.

The IMF has estimated that the volume of cross border money

laundering is between 2 and 5 percent of the world’s gross domestic

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product, staggering figures. And at the lower end of the range, the

amount of money laundered worldwide, even again the smallest

projection, is $600 billion.

Because of the United States’ dominant role in international finance, a substantial amount of that $600 billion is being laundered

through U.S. financial institutions. If we can successfully reduce

the ability of drug dealers to launder the proceeds, the cartels and

smaller dealers would be forced to reduce the size and numbers of

their transaction and certainly make their business much more difficult. This reduction will substantially reduce the amount of drugs

available to our citizens and most importantly, to our children.

When criminals deal with legitimate commercial and financial

sectors during the laundering process, they enable law enforcement

officials to follow the money trail and to develop methods officials

can use to apprehend them. With a trail to follow, law enforcement

officers can often identify the persons who bring about or finance

criminal drug activity. The trail can also lead back to drug dealers

and other criminals whose illegal activities generated the money in

the first place.

It is at the first of these three stages of money laundering, the

placement stage, that laundered money is most easily detected. The

placement stage is the point where illegally derived money is inserted into the legitimate financial system. So international regulatory and enforcement efforts are focused on methods which will

make it especially difficult for criminals to place funds, illegal

funds, without being detected.

Our first national strategy to combat money laundering, which

was entitled the Money Laundering Strategy for 2000, has established goals and objectives to be achieved during this year, including the following. And let me read some of those, if I may. First,

the designation of the first four high risk money laundering and financial crime areas, and the launch of a financial crime free community support program, including a State and local grant program.

Second, the proposed legislation giving the Secretary of the

Treasury new discretionary authority to crack down on foreign jurisdictions, institutions and classes of transactions which pose serious money laundering threats. Third, this strategy also asks for

legislation affording prosecutors and investigators new tools to

fight money laundering and the designation of foreign corruption as

money laundering predicate offenses. And fourth, part of the strategy announces a final rule for applying suspicious activity reporting, which are also known as SRA requirements, to money service

businesses, and proposes rules for casinos and brokers and dealers

in securities.

Fifth, part of this is to develop a new method to identify countries which pose serious threats. The sixth part is setting out a

plan to issue guidance to financial institutions to apply scrutiny to

certain high risk accounts. And the seventh and last point calls for

studies on the appropriate role of gatekeepers in the international

financial system, such as lawyers and accountants. Those are seven

points of the strategy.

The problems various law enforcement organizations face in

fighting money laundering are in fact formidable. Drug organizaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:11 Jun 11, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\72447.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions have become much more sophisticated and use the latest

technology as well as more traditional methods to launder money.

The modern electronic transfer of funds means that every business

day, more than $2 trillion is wire transferred around the world

through more than a half a million transactions. This tremendous

number of transactions makes it extremely difficult for law enforcement agencies to identify those financial transactions that are in

fact illegal.

Other methods of money laundering which have become popular

among drug dealers include the buying and selling of commodities

like cosmetics, electronics and heavy equipment. Colombian drug

cartels have also been reported as investing in American-made

goods, such as automobile parts, clothing, computers, and even

outsourcing the money laundering part of their business to brokers

whose business it is to buy and sell drug profits like profits for

some type of a commodity.

Electronic money, e-money, is making it much easier for criminals to conceal the source of their illegal funds and to move that

money without detection. Internet transfers are also another problem, and transfer of these funds combine the speed of bank-generated wire transfers with the anonymity of currency in multiple

currencies and without intermediaries.

According to recent reports, the gold trade has also become much

more important as a money laundering mechanism and is being

used to clean. The reports we have are staggering, that’s the term,

staggering amounts of dirty money. These funds are used to buy

gold in any form, including gold bars, jewelry, and even gold scrap.

The illegal profits are cleaned when the gold is shipped across various borders and sold.

With nearly every United States money laundering case in recent

years involving gold, authorities have been unable to trace the

movement of tons of gold and billions of dollars to drug deals by

Latin American drug cartels. Gold gives money launderers a level

of certainty in their laundering efforts, as they can exchange it in

any country in the world.

Gold traders have complained that the pervasive influence of

drug traffickers is taking over the Latin American gold trade and

squeezing out legitimate dealers. An example of the increase in

gold trade is the jump in United States gold imports from the

Netherland Antilles in the Caribbean. Between 1993 and 1997, the

gold exports to the United States soared from $68,000 to $29 million. At the Miami International Airport annual gold imports rose

from $18 million in 1989 to $465 million in 1998, a 26 fold increase.

Recent legislation entitled the Money Laundering Act of 2000 not

only addresses many of the problems and situations I’ve described,

but like the strategy for 2000, give law enforcement authorities

new tools to fight money laundering. Among these are a provision

which enables the U.S. District Court to have jurisdiction over a

foreign bank that violates the money laundering statute, so long as

that bank maintains an account in the United States and receives

appropriate service of process.

However, other provisions in the law give the Treasury Department discretion in pursuing activities relating to foreign jurisdicVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:11 Jun 11, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\72447.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions. So while Congress has acted to improve our ability to detect

money laundering and to pursue the drug traffickers who use that

money to destroy the lives of millions of Americans, I wonder if

we’ve still done enough.

While I’m pleased that the Financial Action Task Force yesterday released a list of non-cooperating countries, and some of you

may have seen that in the news account, and I think they cited the

countries, some 15 countries according to Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, and those countries are in fact on the list,

Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Dominica, Israel, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Panama, Philippines, Russia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. And they were again cited.

While I’m pleased that they have named these countries, the list

begs some questions. What action did the Treasury Department

take to ensure that these countries will make changes in their

banking system? Naming and shaming exercise will only be effective if we act decisively to bring about positive change.

I also want to bring to the attention of the subcommittee the

Money Laundering Alert for June, one of the preeminent resources

for tracking what’s going on in the area of money laundering, and

cite from its volume 2 No. 8 report a very interesting and disturbing finding. It says, money laundering cases plummet despite the

flood of SRAs. And again, SRAs are suspicious activity reports,

SRAs.

But again, let me quote from this report. It says, the number of

money laundering cases produced by the principal U.S. enforcement agencies has declined dramatically, despite hundreds of thousands of SRA reports filed and millions of wire transferred records

kept by U.S. financial institutions since 1996. In the 5-years from

1994 to 1998, the number of persons charged with money laundering as the prime offense who were referred for prosecutions by the

IRS, FBI, Customs Service and DEA fell by more than 24 percent.

That startling finding emerged from an analysis by Money Laundering Alert of data in a unique source called the Transactional

Records Access Clearinghouse, a research center at Syracuse University.

I’d like to submit for the record the balance of that report, which

is entitled, Report from the Trenches. It outlines the decline in the

number of cases that have been prosecuted which is pretty dramatic from 1994 to 1998. Without objection, that will be made part

of the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Our witnesses this morning posses both knowledge

and experience to help us to understand the whole money laundering process and problem and some of the steps we may need to

take to reduce problems we have incurred with money laundering.

Hopefully, they can shed some light on what each of these agencies

are doing to deal with that problem.

With their ability to finance drug deals, drug traffickers have an

incredible ability to continue their death and destruction. It’s important that we find some way to contain that illegal money laundering.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John L. Mica follows:]

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Mr. MICA. With that, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and at this time, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman

from Maryland, Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank

you for holding this hearing on international money laundering.

Back in 1996, the amount of money laundered internationally was $300 billion. Just 4 short years later, that amount has doubled. At least $600 billion in laundered money is currently filling

the bank accounts of international organized crime and drug trafficking organizations. This issue definitely hits home for me. The

ability to launder dirty money fuels an empire that has debilitated

my district and continues a cycle of drug abuse and addiction.

Although this act is incredibly difficult to investigate, we’re making progress. This progress is demonstrated by one investigation

we’ve often discussed in this subcommittee, Operation Casablanca. According to the Treasury Department, $35 million was recovered

in the operation and officials from 12 of Mexico’s 19 largest banks

were indicted. This was a major coup for the United States Government, and a blow to major drug traffickers in Mexico.

Unfortunately, this was only a drop in the bucket. I hope this

hearing will allow us an opportunity to discuss H.R. 3886, an administration supported bill that was recently passed by the House

Banking Committee. The International Counter-Money Laundering

Act of 2000, a bipartisan bill, would increase the authority of the

Treasury Department to combat these crimes. I look forward to

hearing more about this bill in today’s testimony.

Additionally, globalization and electronic technology have made

it easier to transfer funds around the world and increasingly more

difficult to track. Yesterday, the Financial Action Task Force, a

group of 26 countries, including the United States, working together to fight money laundering, identified 15 countries as potential havens of money laundering. I’m interested in hearing from the

witnesses regarding how this list will assist in the Government’s

counter-money laundering efforts.

Will it be used in the same way as our annual drug certification

process? Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, and again I want to thank you for your vigilance with

regard to drug trafficking in this country and around the world.

And I look forward to the hearing.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

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Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman from Maryland, and the gentleman from Maryland moves that the record be left open for a period of 2 weeks for additional statements or responses from witnesses. Without objection, so ordered.

We’ll now move to our first panel. Our first panel consists of Ms.

Mary Lee Warren, who’s the Deputy Assistant Attorney General,

Criminal Division, of the Department of Justice. Next witness is

Mr. John C. Varrone, and he is the Acting Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Investigations, U.S. Customs Service, in

the Department of Treasury. Mr. Edward Mr. Guillen, and he is

the Chief of the Financial Operations Section of DEA, Department

of Justice. And Mr. James F. Sloan, Director of Financial Crimes

Enforcement Network. Our final witness on this first panel is William F. Wechsler, and he is the Special Advisor to the Secretary

and Deputy Secretary for Money Laundering in the Department of

Treasury.

Some of you have been before us before, you know this is an investigations and oversight subcommittee of Congress. We swear in

our witnesses. We also ask that if you have a lengthy statement

or anything that exceeds 5 minutes that that be submitted for the

record. And upon request, will be done so.

At this time, if you’ll please stand to be sworn. Raise your right

hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. Witnesses answered in the affirmative, and we’re first

pleased to recognize Mary Lee Warren, Deputy Assistant Attorney

General, of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, for

your statement. Thank you.

STATEMENTS OF MARY LEE WARREN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF

JUSTICE; WILLIAM F. WECHSLER, SPECIAL ADVISOR TO THE

SECRETARY AND DEPUTY SECRETARY FOR MONEY LAUNDERING, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY; JOHN C.

VARRONE, ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY; EDWARD M. GUILLEN, CHIEF, FINANCIAL OPERATIONS SECTION, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; AND JAMES F.

SLOAN, DIRECTOR, FINANCIAL CRIMES ENFORCEMENT NETWORK

Ms. WARREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m pleased to be back,

to take this opportunity to appear today regarding the important

issue of international money laundering.

In my testimony today, I wish to highlight some recent trends in

international money laundering and to explain why recently introduced legislation noted by the chairman is necessary to help U.S.

law enforcement effectively work against international money laundering.

Back in 1986, when the U.S. money laundering laws were first

enacted, money laundering was primarily a domestic problem. Over

time, and certainly today, it has become an international scourge

requiring collaborative efforts around the globe. Our laws regrettably have not kept pace with this change.

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The money laundering problem is now global, but the basic challenge for many money launderers, and especially for drug proceeds

money launderers, remains the same: concealing and moving the

enormous amounts of illicit cash generated by narcotics sales. Once

the cash is entered or placed into one country’s financial system,

it can be wired instantaneously around the world. The United

States, through the banking sector and reporting requirements of

the Bank Secrecy Act, has effectively closed the U.S. banking system to this initial placement. No longer do we routinely see people

without legitimate means of support dragging duffle bags full of

tens and twenties into banks for deposit.

The traffickers and their money launderers are most vulnerable

to law enforcement detection when their cash hoards have been collected from their drug selling stash houses, drug selling spots and

their stash houses. We’ve noted that our estimate on calculations

is that cash collected is about three and a half times the drug

weight from which those proceeds are generated. So the sheer volume of the cash is a problem to the traffickers.

And as the chairman noted, it is for this reason, even in the

international context, that law enforcement has focused on the

placement stage of money laundering. Money launderers must look

more than ever before to non-traditional U.S. financial institutions,

or they must find ways to move the money outside of the United

States.

The use of money services businesses, especially wire remittance

businesses, is not new for the money launderers. This was set out

in stark relief when the Treasury Department entered its geographic targeting order in the New York Metropolitan area a few

years ago. The data collected showed that the area’s remitters were

sending amounts of money from one neighborhood, Jackson

Heights in Queens, NY, to Colombia, that would have shown that

each household was very, very wealthy, if not of millionaire status.

In fact, demographics show the opposite.

The original GTO was extended several times and a similar effort was in place in Puerto Rico to crack down on the abuse of

these wire remittance houses.

The black market peso exchange system also introduced by the

chairman is a second major system for laundering drug proceeds.

It’s a system that has existed for decades to avoid tariffs and duties

that were very high in Colombia. But now the system has been coopted by the drug traffickers, and billions of dollars that are United

States drug proceeds are in fact converted into United States goods

that are imported and smuggled into Colombia.

The black market peso exchange system relies on three principal

parties: a trafficker who has drug dollars in the United States and

needs pesos in Colombia; a Colombian, particularly an importer,

who has pesos in Colombia and needs dollars in the United States

to buy import goods; and a peso broker in Colombia who puts those

parties together. The peso broker has the same problem as the traffickers and other money launderers, introducing the drug dollars

into a legitimate financial sector and tries this through various

means, smurfing structuring amounts, trying to get it into our system or wire remittances and other money services businesses, or

bulk smuggling of the currency.

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Recent undercover operations, Operations Skymaster and Juno,

detailed in my written statement, are real life illustrations of how

the black market peso systems works in action. Those defendants,

peso brokers, traffickers, launderers, are now charged, some already convicted.

We dispute the Money Laundering Alert figures. Prosecutors in

the Federal courts have filed more than 2,000 money laundering

charges against more than 200 defendants each year since 1996,

1996 through 1999. Each year it has gone up. So we dispute those

figures presented in the Money Laundering Alert.

Just in summary, the black market peso exchange in essence,

what starts out as drug proceeds on the streets of United States

cities ends up as smuggled United States trade products in the

markets and businesses in Colombia. And in essence what it does

is it fuels the drug trade.

The bulk movement of cash, we see it more and more. It does

carry the greatest risk to the traffickers. And that is the reason for

targeting this bulk cash shipment and concealment. One of the

HIDTHs mentioned by the chairman is at the Texas-Arizona border

with Mexico, and focuses on the movement, bulk movement of cash

across to Mexico and back.

Legislative solutions. The reality of international money laundering in the year 2000 has prompted most countries to look for ways

to update their domestic laws and find ways to work collaboratively

against this problem. I would like to underscore that the recently

introduced Money Laundering Act of 2000, H.R. 4695, addresses

two principal problems in the anti-money laundering area, the concealing and laundering of foreign-derived illicit proceeds that are

sought to be brought into the U.S. financial system and the transport or laundering of U.S. criminal proceeds going into foreign financial systems.

As to the first, no one wants the United States to become the

haven for the world’s criminal proceeds. It should be a crime for

a criminal to use our domestic financial institutions to launder the

proceeds of his foreign crime. Except in a few instances, our current laws do not address this problem. H.R. 4695 would.

Section 6 expands the list of money laundering predicate crimes

to include many serious foreign offenses. Section 21 would allow us

to assist other nations by commencing a formal action to confiscate

foreign criminal proceeds. For the flip side, that is the U.S. criminally derived proceeds that are going outside, Section 18 would

make bulk cash smuggling a crime in and of itself. It is not a crime

to smuggle cash today. It is a crime to smuggle most every other

thing, but not cash.

Section 19 would make it a crime to be a knowing courier of dirty

proceeds. You mentioned the long arm jurisdiction that would allow

us to reach those foreign banks that have used the U.S. financial

system.

In response to the globalization of money laundering, and especially the trends concerning money laundering service businesses,

the black market peso exchange and bulk cash smuggling, law enforcement needs some updating of the present anti-money laundering laws. We have had important successes, even with our current

laws. But I would wish to say, and pledge that the Department of

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Justice is ready to work with the Congress on H.R. 4695, which we

view as an important step in enhancing our effectiveness against

money laundering in the 21st century.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Warren follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Rather than interrupting the next witness, I think

what we’re going to do is recess until 10:15, approximately 10:15.

I’ll ask all the witnesses to stand by, and we will proceed. Since

there is a vote at the present time, we’ll stand in recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. MICA. If I could, I’d like to call the subcommittee back to

order.

I’ll recognize our next witness, which is Mr. William F. Wechsler.

He is the Special Advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary

for Money Laundering, in the Department of Treasury. Welcome,

sir, and you’re recognized.

Mr. WECHSLER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking

Member Mink, members of this committee, thank you very much

for your focus on this very important issue.

On behalf of Secretary Summers and Deputy Secretary

Eizenstat, I appreciate your opening statements and agree with

virtually everything that you said.

I won’t go through what you went through, which is the national

money laundering strategy for 2000, which I think you summarized

very well. The main point I want to make there is that all four tenets of fighting money laundering have to be done together. That

means law enforcement on the Federal level, law enforcement on

the State and local level, banking regulation and supervision, and

international policy. And if you leave out any one of those tenets

of combating money laundering, you’re going to leave wide loopholes for money launderers to run right through.

We have other people here before the committee that can talk

about the law enforcement side, so I’ll let them do that. But I will

focus, it’s also in my written remarks, but I will focus today on the

international side.

Let me begin with a little bit of context. The last decade on the

international money marketing front has seen two different trends

which need to be understood. First, the good news. In the last decade, the United States and its partners and developed major financial centers have come a long way to establishing international

standards to fight money laundering, to create good anti-money

laundering regimes, and have brought a lot of countries in the developed major financial centers up to these high levels.

We’ve mostly done that through the Financial Action Task Force,

which was created in 1989 under the Bush administration project.

And in 1990, created the first set of international anti-money laundering standards. And when countries join the FATF, they make

a political commitment to bring their domestic anti-money laundering regime up to those standards. Those standards were again reissued and updated in 1996.

This has been, the FATF in the Bush and Clinton administrations has been a great success story. Now it has 26 nations that

have joined, 3 more are on the way. All these countries are making

political commitments to improve their regimes.

The end result of it is, you see things like in Switzerland, where

almost every month now we read a fascinating story about a major

money laundering case being made there, involving Russian organized crime, involving Latin American drug cartels. These are

things that as early as 5 years ago, you would have never seen out

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of Switzerland. This can be ascribed to the FATF process and countries like Switzerland joining the FATF process and raising their

money laundering standards.

That’s the positive trend. But unfortunately, there’s a negative

trend over the last decade, or actually even more recently that has

gone along the same side. And that trend is the proliferation of

money laundering havens around the world. As a result of

globalization and advances in banking and communications technologies, money can move farther and faster than ever before. Of

course, this is a great boon to business, but it can also provide new

opportunities for money laundering.

As Secretary Summers said in a speech last March, in a world

where capital can silently traverse the globe at the push of a button, proceeds of crime can move just as quickly and just as quietly.

Only a decade ago, many nations in the world were too physically

remote to be significantly involved in international banking. So the

quality of their anti-money laundering regimes did not significantly

affect the United States or other countries.

But now they are only a click of a mouse away. And now just

as quickly, they can become money laundering havens. Becoming

a money laundering haven is easy to do. It costs no money. All you

have to do is pass a few laws that provide, for example, excessive

bank secrecy, anonymous company formulation, and non-regulated

offshore financial services, then you wait for the money to flow in.

Better yet, you can pass a law banning information sharing with

foreign law enforcement on financial matters.

It’s not taken long for other countries to choose this path. Indeed,

just in the last few years, we’ve seen a number of countries do just

that. Many openly declare they are passing such laws as a formal

part of their economic development programs. Some even blatantly

advertise on the Internet that by putting money in their banks,

you’ll be protected by their laws from investigations by U.S. law enforcement.

Of course, for these countries, it’s extremely difficult for them to

know if the money that goes into their banks in this fashion is

dirty or clean.

To give one quick example, in the South Pacific there’s a small

island called Nauru, which as the chairman noted was on the list

that the Financial Action Task Force put out yesterday. Some time

ago, it had one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, because of phosphate mining. The phosphate ran out, they became a

money laundering haven.

The Russian Central Bank told the press that in 1998, $74 billion left Russia to go into offshore financial centers. Now, we of

course don’t know if this is capital flight or money laundering or

what. We don’t know how much of it went back to Russia. But

these are the Russian Central Bank’s numbers. $74 billion is a

huge amount.

Of that, $70 billion in 1998 went through banks chartered in

Nauru. It’s an amazing statistic.

So let me tell you what we’ve done about this. Last year, the

United States, along with the United Kingdom, started to take

against this front when we issued an advisory against Antigua and

Barbados because of some significant weaknesses in their regime.

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This public rebuke had a profound effect on Antigua, which has

since worked with the United States to change its laws to move toward international standards.

But even as we were taking this action, we knew that a more

systematic approach, a more multilateral approach was needed.

So in February of this year, the Financial Action Task Force’s 26

member nations reached agreement on a list of 25 criteria which

would be objective measures that we could use to determine whether countries fell significantly short of international anti-money

laundering standards. FATF then agreed on a list of countries that

were deserving of priority attention to be judged against these criteria, there were 29 of them. Then experts of the 26 countries of

FATF produced comprehensive analyses of their laws and regulations and practices. We then had processes between the FATF and

these countries to give a give and take where they could do written

comments on it, which they could do face to face meetings, that we

had all the information that we needed, and just this past week in

Paris, the 26 nations of FATF came up with their list that you read

at the start of this hearing.

This is a major accomplishment, the first ever multilateral designation of countries that fall short of international standards on

any subject, something that we have not been able to accomplish,

other law enforcement, other foreign policy subjects, but we’ve been

able to do on money laundering.

This public naming and shaming should have a profound effect,

indeed, it already has. If you look at some of the wire stories coming out today, from the Philippines, for instance, where they publicly committed to improve their standards. Liechtenstein, even

through this process, has done more in the last couple of months

to fight money laundering than it has in years preceding. It has

hired an Austrian special investigator, which has arrested a number of prominent members of people in the country, including the

brother of the deputy head of government, the brother of the chief

justice of the supreme court and a sitting member of parliament for

money laundering.

In large part, these actions have been taken because the international community is now taking strong public measures.

Next step is two-fold. In the fall, FATF will start examining another group of countries and see if they meet or fail the FATF

standards. Also, the member countries of FATF, including the

United States, are now actively considering what next steps we

have to take with these countries, what kind of guidance we need

to give to our domestic financial institutions on what they need to

do in dealings with these countries, and what kind of actions, other

actions we should be taking vis-a-vis these countries, both positive

and negative. Positive for countries that want to cooperate and

build their systems up to international standards, including offers

of technical assistance and training. And if countries continue to be

outliers and continue to flaunt international standards, we will

have to look at harsher measures.

That is one of the reasons why, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman

and Representative Cummings also mentioned in his introductory

remarks, that the administration strongly supports the International Counter-Money Laundering Act of 2000 which passed

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bipartisanly overwhelmingly in the House Banking Committee, 31

to 1, which would give the Treasury Department new tools, tools

that we do not have right now, to be able to crack down on these

havens who willfully ignore international standards.

Sadly, if this legislation is not passed, we could be in a position

in the worst of all situations where countries are flaunting international standards, other countries are taking action, but the

United States, because it simply does not have the tools, is unable

to do so.

Thank you very much again, Mr. Chairman. The only other comment I’d like to make is, you made reference to statistics that were

in Money Laundering Alert. Deputy Secretary Eizenstat has sent

a letter to the editor of the Miami Herald on this subject, and I’d

like it to be introduced into the record, if that’s OK.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, that will be made part of the

record.

Mr. WECHSLER. And I’d also like to introduce to the record a letter that was singed by six heads of law enforcement agencies supporting the legislation, the International Counter-Money Laundering Act.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, we will also include that letter.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wechsler follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. We’ll withhold questions until we’ve heard from all the witnesses.

The next witness will be Mr. John C. Varrone, who’s Acting Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Office of Investigations, U.S. Customs

Service. You’re recognized, sir.

Mr. VARRONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning to members of the subcommittee. Thank you for

inviting me today to discuss the global impact of money laundering

and the U.S. Customs Service approach in addressing this increasing international threat.

Mr. Chairman, as you and your committee are aware, money

laundering is a threat to the economic and national security of this

Nation. It is estimated that the worldwide volume of money laundering is between 2 and 5 percent of the world’s gross domestic

product, or in excess of $600 billion.

In response to this threat, the Departments of Treasury and Justice developed and implemented a money laundering strategy for

all of the law enforcement bureaus. Pursuant to this new strategy,

four high intensity financial crime areas have been identified.

These HIFCAs are intended to concentrate law enforcement efforts

at the Federal, State and local level to combat money laundering

in these designated high intensity zones.

The cities of Los Angeles, San Juan, Puerto Rico and the New

York-New Jersey area have been designated as HIFCA areas.

HIFCAs can also be formed to address a specific money laundering

system. With that in mind, the fourth HIFCA along the ArizonaTexas border will concentrate on the bulk cash system that moves

large volumes of smuggled currency between the United States and

Mexico.

Customs played a primary role in the working group, determining the placement of the HIFCAs because of the primary enforcement agency responsibilities that we have at our Nation’s borders.

We have the jurisdictional responsibility for enforcing lawful international trade involving commodities and monetary instruments.

The Congress has given the U.S. Customs Service the requisite authority for the enforcement of international financial crime and related money laundering investigations. Our enforcement efforts are

not related to drug related money laundering investigations, but to

the proceeds of all crime.

Investigation or interdiction activity is often triggered by the illegal movement of criminally derived funds, services or merchandise

across our national borders, and is applied pursuant to the authority under the Bank Secrecy and the Money Laundering Control

Acts of 1986 and 1988.

This jurisdiction also enables us to address money laundering

outside the context of narcotics trafficking in such areas as prime

investment fraud, advanced fee schemes and telemarketing fraud.

For example, Project Cult, a joint international telemarketing enforcement with the Canadian authorities, has been credited with

the prosecution of 19 violators and presently pending 30 additional

suspects, pending prosecution, and the seizure of the nexus of $10

million which has been recovered and returned to the victims of

this fraud.

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The Customs Service has an aggressive strategy to combat

money laundering and dedicates a nexus of 400 agents worldwide

to pursue these investigations. Over the past 3 fiscal years, the

Service has conducted over 12,000 financial investigations, resulting in the arrest of 3,150 violators and the seizure of over $1 billion.

Customs combats money laundering through a systems based approach. Enforcement programs that we use to attack these systems

include outbound interdiction, undercover investigations, regulatory interventions, industry outreach, multi-agency operations,

and global partnerships.

One of our most effective programs has been our undercover

money laundering operations. During the past 12 years, the Customs Service long term undercover operations have resulted in the

seizure of over $1 billion in cash, over 2,000 arrests and the seizure

of more than 37,000 kilograms of cocaine.

To assist with our large number of undercover financial investigations, we’ve developed and implemented the money laundering

coordination center. This center, which has been operational since

1997, is providing deconfliction support to all U.S. Customs undercover operations. The MLCC also serves as a safety mechanism, so

that all Customs investigations are tracked and coordinated in real

time.

As outlined in the National Money Laundering Strategy, the

MLCC is also the repository for all U.S. Government information

relating to the black market peso exchange. This information is

analyzed by Customs in order to develop targets and systems for

investigation.

The black market peso exchange system is another method violators employ to circumvent the currency reporting requirements of

the Bank Secrecy Act. It is one of the most efficient and extensive

money laundering systems in the western hemisphere. It is estimated that the black market peso exchange launders approximately $4 billion in drug moneys per year.

In addition to our investigative efforts, the Customs Service,

through the MLCC, has implemented an industry outreach program to educate U.S. businesses as to how the black market peso

exchange operates and to solicit their cooperation on the implementation of compliance programs.

A key instrument in our outreach is our brochure, which describes in detail the black market peso exchange process and highlights red flags which may be indicative of a black market peso exchange transaction, and last, provides industry with a point of contact if they identify such suspect transactions. Criminal organizations are highly adaptable and employ a variety of methods to repatriate their assets.

Some are quite sophisticated, like the black market peso exchange, and others are more simplistic and riskier, such as the

smuggling of bulk cash. Through a variety of investigative intelligence and interdiction programs, the Customs Service has identified and seized numerous bulk cash shipments concealed in aircraft, vessels, vehicles, appliances, stereo equipment, machine parts

and even violators who are willing to ingest currency to avoid detection.

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A recent example of a bulk cash seizure by Customs occurred on May 1st, when six boxes of currency totaling $2.6 million were discovered in a tractor trailer that had entered the United States from

Canada en route to Florida. Subsequent investigation revealed that

the money was going to be used to purchase a large quantity of cocaine.

Bulk cash smuggling presents the trafficker with the logistical

problem of securing modes of transport capable of handling the

amounts of cash generated by drug sales. Consider the following.

If the proceeds of cocaine—— Mr. MICA. Mr. Varrone, it looks like you have a number of pages.

Can you begin to summarize? Because we can submit the entire

statement.

Mr. VARRONE. Yes, sir.

In sum, Mr. Chairman, through the regulatory interventions

such as the GTO, which others have discussed on the record, enforcement operations at the Customs Service has a variety of, I just

think that we’re in a position where the balance of all of these programs is good for law enforcement, and we support the H.R. 3886,

which the committee has put forth. The Customs Service would

like to go on the record to support that.

And then I’ll just be available to answer any questions you may

have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Varrone follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Yes, and we’d like to get to that. Without objection,

Mrs. Mink asks that your entire statement be made part of the

record, and it will be so ordered.

Let me recognize Mr. Guillen, and he is the Chief of Financial

Operations Section for DEA in the Department of Justice. You’re

recognized, sir.

Mr. GUILLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate

the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee today on the

subject of international money laundering. My comments will be

limited to an objective assessment of the law enforcement issues involving drug trafficking and money laundering, with specific attention devoted to the challenges that today’s organized crime syndicates from Colombia and Mexico present to our law enforcement

officers.

Whereas previous organized crime leaders were millionaires, the

Colombian drug traffickers and their counterparts from Mexico are

billionaires. They have learned to exploit a variety of weaknesses

in order to protect their drug profits, which are the lifeblood of

these organizations. Their ultimate purpose is to amass large sums

of money in order to maintain their obscene and lavish lifestyle,

free from the boundaries or confines of the law.

As you are well aware, money laundering is a process used by

drug traffickers to convert bulk amounts of drug profits into legitimate money. The need to launder conspicuously large amounts of

small denomination bills renders the traffickers vulnerable to law

enforcement interdiction. Tracking and intercepting this illegal

flow of drug money is an important tool in identifying and dismantling international drug trafficking organizations.

Laundering drug proceeds from Mexican crime syndicates is commonly accomplished by relatively simple and direct means, the

bulk shipment of currency back to Mexico. Tractor trailers and cars

with hidden compartments are frequently used to smuggle drugs

out of Mexico into the United States. And then these same vehicles

are packed with the proceeds from the street sale of the drugs and

returned to Mexico.

Drug traffickers based in Colombia also move the proceeds from

their operations in the United States to Los Angeles, New York

and Miami for bulk shipment out of the United States. Both the

Colombians and Mexicans frequently use vehicles with hidden compartments to carry large quantities of United States currency. The

bulk movement of United States cash to Mexico has resulted in significant increases of financial seizures along United States roadways.

During calendar year 1999, U.S. law enforcement seized over

$69.4 million on U.S. highways. From January 2000 to March 31st

of this year, law enforcement agencies have seized over $19.2 million. It is estimated that most of the currency seized was destined

for drug trafficking organizations operating out of Mexico.

Another system commonly used by Mexican traffickers or traffickers wishing to repatriate their moneys to Mexico is through the

use of the money service businesses, which have been discussed by

other witnesses before the committee today. Due to geographical

considerations, Colombian traffickers face many difficulties during

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their initial phase of the money laundering process that Mexican

syndicates do not encounter. Colombian drug organizations have in

the past relied on a multifaceted collection process. They have

amassed currency in strategic locations, used a variety of methods,

including smuggling and bribery to introduce the cash into the U.S.

banking system and subsequently transferring it to Colombia.

In an effort to avoid the high risks associated with direct deposits in United States or European banks, many Colombian drug

traffickers have returned to the simplest of money laundering

methods, the bulk movement of cash. Currently, the vast majority

of United States currency bound for bank accounts of the Colombian drug lords leaves the United States either through air cargo

or commercial cargo freighters.

Due to the enormous amount of commercial trade the United

States has with Colombia, this method makes the traffickers’ operations not only less complicated, but less vulnerable to discovery by

law enforcement. In addition, Colombian drug trafficking will exploit any means possible to safely launder their drug proceeds. One

such form of money laundering is known as the black market peso

exchange. The black market peso exchange is a complex system

currently used by drug trafficking organizations to launder billions

of dollars of drug money each year, utilizing the advantages of the

Panama Canal Free Zone, which serves as an integral link in the

Colombian money laundering chain.

In order to respond to the threat of money laundering, the DEA

is actively involved in a host of joint initiatives with all of the organizations represented by panel members here today. These initiatives are designed to target the money laundering capabilities of

major drug trafficking organizations operating in the United

States. DEA’s current ongoing undercover operations have thus far

resulted in the arrests of 373 individuals, over $72.7 million in currency and asset seizures, 9,399 kilos of cocaine, 30 kilos of heroin

and 140 kilos of marijuana.

DEA additionally continues to support a number of interdiction

programs that target the bulk shipment of illicit funds across our

Nation’s highways.

The U.S. national money laundering strategy issued by the Department of Treasury and Justice in September 1999 and further

refined and expanded in February 2000 prescribes a wide range of

laundering control measures that affect public and private entities

in the United States and abroad. DEA actively participates in several of the target specific work groups responsible for developing

new enforcement, regulatory strategies and initiatives.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and committee, DEA remains committed to our primary goal of targeting and arresting the most significant drug traffickers in the world today. We will continue to

work with our law enforcement partners to improve our cooperative

efforts against international drug trafficking organizations. The ultimate measure of success will come when we dismantle the drug

trafficking organizations that bring misery to the nations in which

they operate.

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Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to appear before the

subcommittee today. I will be happy to answer any questions you

may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Guillen follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you, and we’ll withhold questions until we’ve

heard from our final witness, which is James F. Sloan, and he’s director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. You’re recognized, sir.

Mr. SLOAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I want to thank

you for giving the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

[FinCEN], an opportunity to speak before you today. I’m going to

be incredibly brief; and, I think this is the first time that FinCEN

has appeared before this committee, but given the interest expressed by the chairman and from what I know of the subcommittee, I think we may be returning in the future. So I think that as

FinCEN provides the subcommittee with further information about

its operations, I think the questions and answers will certainly suffice.

But I would say that as far as FinCEN is concerned, the success

or failure of our operations is essentially the success or failure of

the operations of the agencies that you’ve heard from today. Suffice

it to say that FinCEN is the nexus that provides information to the

financial community through the Bank Secrecy Act, adds value to

that information, provides it to law enforcement so they can follow

the money. We also provide, what I believe to be, the appropriate

conduit as a network between and among the law enforcement

community, both at the Federal, State and local levels.

And we also provide an important conduit to law enforcement in

the area of financial investigations overseas. I welcome the opportunity to answer any questions. I have prepared a statement that

I would like to have submitted for the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. SLOAN. And I apologize for cutting the comments brief, but

I think you want to get on to some questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sloan follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Right. Well, thank you so much, and I thank all the

panelists for their opening comments.

Let me jump right to the first thing, which is the report we received with a number of prime money laundering case referrals

having dropped for most of the agencies, DEA dropped from 241 to

184, 1994 versus 1998; 469 for FBI, to 356; Customs has a slight

increase, I think they’re the only ones that don’t show a decrease.

But again, the major enforcement agencies.

Ms. Warren, you dispute some of these statistics. Now, these are

comparing apples and apples, not apples and oranges, as I understand it. Are these figures correct?

Ms. WARREN. I don’t think it’s comparing apples and apples.

What are case referrals? A single case may involve as many as 300

defendants.

Mr. MICA. Are you prepared to provide us with information, specific information on prosecutions?

Ms. WARREN. Yes. We have the statistics by the statutory charge,

18 U.S.C. Section—— Mr. MICA. Is it chronological?

Ms. WARREN. We have it for 3 years, 4 years now, and I can

produce that for the committee.

Mr. MICA. Does that show an increase or decrease in prosecutions?

Ms. WARREN. An increase each year.

Mr. MICA. Is that for each of the agencies under DOJ?

Ms. WARREN. It is for Federal prosecution. I don’t believe I’ll be

able to show it as to individual agencies, because most of those

cases are multi-agency cases. But I can show you for the defendants charged in Federal court by the statute, by the money laundering statutes, during the years 1996 through 1999.

Mr. MICA. Well, we’ll look at that and try to get some comparison, again, trying to be fair in the comparison.

But again, one of the outside independent agencies seems to differ with some of the emphasis and shows a 24 percent decrease, at

least, in the case referrals.

Ms. WARREN. Could I offer one further explanation of that data?

I think limited to primary offense, if that is measured by the sentence under the sentencing guidelines, the offense with the greatest

sentencing exposure will be the sentence for conviction and sentencing. If there for example is a drug count along with the money

laundering count, just because of the nature of our drug laws, it

will eclipse the lesser sentence of money laundering. And they may

be counting from that. I’m counting from numbers of prosecutions.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Guillen, was it you that cited that 26 have joined

in an international cooperative effort? OK, that was Mr. Wechsler.

Mr. WECHSLER. That was me, sir.

Mr. MICA. You were talking about the 26 countries that have

joined in this cooperative effort. Are they the same countries that

have now named these offenders?

Mr. WECHSLER. Yes, exactly, sir.

Mr. MICA. It’s nice to name them, but is there any anticipated

penalty? Is there any action, be it unilateral action that’s proposed

by this administration to go after the known offenders, or by this

group?

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Mr. WECHSLER. It’s an excellent question, sir. We’re going to do

that in a number of fronts. First of all, in addition to just naming

them, the 26 member nations of FATF, included what’s referred to

in FATF as recommendation 21, which is a recommendation to all

the banks in the FATF member countries to take special measures

to examine transactions with the countries that are listed.

Mr. MICA. What kind of actions?

Mr. WECHSLER. Well, we under our own law have to interpret

that. And right now we are working very hard, and it will only be

a matter of weeks, I expect, before you see the conclusion of this,

of exactly what guidance we are going to give to our banks on each

one of these countries on how and what kind of additional actions,

hopefully in accordance to the Bank Secrecy Act, to give suspicious

activity reporting to FinCEN, so it can then get information to the

law enforcement agencies.

Mr. MICA. Does your agency currently weigh in on the decertification process?

Mr. WECHSLER. Absolutely.

Mr. MICA. And certification?

Mr. WECHSLER. Absolutely.

Mr. MICA. Do you think it will be the intent to recommend that

these offenders also be decertified under the drug statutes?

Mr. WECHSLER. I do think, sir, it’s an excellent question, that already money laundering is of course an annex to the State Department report that provides the background information for the drug

certification process. Through this FATF process, I think what we

have just done is improved, in many cases by leaps and bounds, the

quality of information that we have about the anti-money laundering regime in these 15 countries in particular and actually 29 countries if they were done. So our hope is that that information should

be much more utility to the drug certification process.

Mr. MICA. Certainly the United States also has influence in all

the international banks and finance markets and really supports

some of these countries’ financial stability and ability to conduct

transactions through again our large influence and our potentially

large ability to weigh in in these international banking institutions

and finance institutions and agreements that we have. Is there intent to go after these countries through some of those mechanisms

and agencies that we’re a part of?

Mr. WECHSLER. Absolutely, sir. In fact, this FATF exercise was

originally done by FATF at the request of the G7 finance ministers.

The G7 finance ministers will take up this report when they meet

in early July in the context of abuses of the financial system writ

large. And I think a lot of the issues that you just mentioned, sir,

will be high up on the agenda.

I would also like to add, sir, that again, on each one of these

countries on a bilateral basis the United States will also be pushing them to improve their money laundering regime. For the ones

that want to cooperate, we will, as appropriate, offer both technical

assistance and drafting of laws and creating institutions and training for law enforcement as resources and appropriate demands.

But there are likely to be some countries that in spite of all the

naming and shaming and at the end of the day will still perhaps

want to refuse the pressure from the international community, and

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will not want to improve their anti-money laundering regimes. We

need to be in a position to be able to take hard, targeted, graduated

measures against those countries. And right now, the executive

branch does not have that authority to take those kind of targeted

measures. And that’s why, as you said in your opening statement

and as Representative Cummings also said, the International

Counter-Money Laundering Act of 2000, the bipartisan initiative, is

so important to pass this year.

Mr. MICA. Well, we already have some current tools, but we also

have some new challenges, e-mails, and now the transactions in

gold which have been described today and other commodities.

Mr. Sloan, is it possible for us to develop rat traps, though, to

catch the rats in this, either through a unilateral U.S. effort or

through some international cooperative effort?

Mr. SLOAN. The quick answer is yes, and we’re working on that

direction. As far as the rat traps, as you describe them, we’d like

to think that the protocols that are in place under the auspices of

the Bank Secrecy Act. For instance, the expansion of the Bank Secrecy Act will cause the money launderer, or the drug dealer in this

case, trying to get money into the financial system a great deal of

difficulty, making them try to move to alternate remittance systems which clearly becomes riskier.

As you may know, and I know you commented on the Money

Laundering Strategy for 2000, we are in the process of expanding

BSA regulations, specifically for suspicious activity reporting, to

other elements of the financial services industry. In fact, in March,

we issued regulations regarding suspicious activity reporting requirements in the money services business. And this includes all

the wire transmitters, all the check cashers, money order providers,

and travel check providers throughout the United States.

We anticipate that we’ll have a final rule of a similar requirement for suspicious activity reports for casinos at the end of the

summer, and we’re working with the SEC now in drafting proposed

regulations that would apply the same sort of suspicious activity

reporting in the securities industry, brokers and dealers in securities. The point I’m getting at is we are expanding the net, if you

will, relative to the Bank Secrecy Act. I think with regard to the

alternate remittance systems, which I think perhaps my colleague

from Customs is more appropriately prepared to discuss, the increase in the use of some of these alternate remittance systems,

whether it’s gold or the black market peso, may be to some degree

a measure of success in the Bank Secrecy Act. So we are building

a tighter net, if you will. It is going to provide, I believe, law enforcement with greater tools to capture the money at the placement

stage, which is as you mentioned, really the key to success.

Mr. MICA. Well, just in closing, you mentioned, Mr. Wechsler, I

think, the Russian Central Bank identified $70 billion run through

Nauru. And I think you mentioned specifically, Mr. Guillen, Mexico

and the problems we’ve been having there, even with the largest

money laundering case I think that Customs had internationally

with Operation Casablanca, where you have corrupt officials all the

way up to the top of the Mexican Government including the banking industry. How do you deal with these situations that we know

exist, Mr. Guillen?

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Mr. GUILLEN. We’re continuing our efforts along those lines. Specifically with money service business, what we are able to do domestically is to monitor. Again, with the help of FinCEN and the

reporting requirements, our investigations are being targeted toward those industries that help to support or facilitate the money

movements via the wire remittance companies to Mexico. Also as

was mentioned with the bulk shipments across the United States

border into Mexico, as Mr. Varrone had mentioned from Customs,

one of the specific HIFCAs that has been established was for that

express purpose, to monitor and to be able to target the bulk shipments between the United States and Mexican border.

So more efforts are being given along those lines. What we’re

able to do with the Mexicans is on a case by case basis. But all of

our efforts are in fact being focused in order to be able to do what

we can here domestically in our investigations, and then break into

successful prosecutions here in the United States.

Mr. MICA. Could we trace any of the $70 billion from the Russian

Central Bank?

Mr. WECHSLER. Yes, that’s where that number came from.

Mr. MICA. No, I know we have the number, but what happened?

Mr. WECHSLER. What you do is you attack it again through many

different fronts. You attack the problem through law enforcement,

you attack it, as was just said, you attack it from regulation to

make sure that we have the kind of anti-money laundering regimes

that dirty money doesn’t hide or is difficult to get dirty money into

the U.S. financial system.

But then also through the international policy, you try to bring

other countries into line with the United States.

Mr. MICA. Specifically on the $70 billion?

Mr. WECHSLER. Specifically what you do is both of the countries

that were involved in this, Russia and Nauru, put them on the

FATF list and get them to improve their anti-money laundering regime. But if they don’t, then you figure out what other kind of

countermeasures could be appropriate.

Mr. MICA. I’m trying to find out specifically, what did we do? We knew $70 billion went through there.

Mr. WECHSLER. What we did expressly is the Treasury Department has asked the Russians for more information on the subject.

We’ve asked Nauru to shut down banks that have participated in

it. Nauru has taken some actions in this regard.

United States banks, domestically, especially what I’ve read in

the papers, Bank of New York, Public Bank, Bankers Trust, have

closed off correspondent relationships with Nauru.

Mr. MICA. So from those transactions, then the $70 billion money

coming from Nauru into the United States shouldn’t be that hard

to trace.

Mr. WECHSLER. It shouldn’t be that hard.

Mr. MICA. We’ve gone after our domestic bankers, too, that may

be recipients or third parties to that illegal transactions?

Mr. WECHSLER. Well, yes, and we have been very pleased that,

like I said, Bank of New York or Public Bank, Bankers Trust—— Mr. MICA. Has anybody been prosecuted in that case?

Mr. WECHSLER. Well, the Bank of New York case, writ large,

which Nauru’s name came up in that as well as ongoing, and I’ll

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defer to the Justice Department if there’s anything we can say on

that.

Ms. WARREN. It remains an ongoing investigation.

Mr. MICA. OK, let me yield to the ranking member, Mrs. Mink.

Thank you.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you all very much.

I think if an average citizen were listening in to this hearing

today, they would be as mystified as I am about this whole issue.

There is a general expectation, I think, in the public at large, and

certainly in my own mind, that in this three-pronged issue regarding illicit drug sales in this country and worldwide, that one of the

things that we certainly should have come to grips with and thoroughly implemented, was the fight against money laundering. With

all the sophistication and the ability and talent in our intelligence

operations, and in the financial aspects of these dealings, I think

we have a right to expect that in this one instance, there would be

vigorous, aggressive, total non-stop efforts to prevent these cartels

from benefiting from the victimization of the citizens of this country.

So it’s rather disturbing to hear the general tone of the hearing

this morning that most of the efforts are conjectural, prospective,

anticipated, we’re working on it, and so forth. And maybe there are

details of what you’re doing that you’re not able to disclose. But I

must say that I’m very disturbed by what has been presented this

morning.

So is there any of the five of you that disagrees that the total

worldwide amount of money laundering is estimated correctly between $600 billion and $1.2 trillion worldwide? There’s general

agreement?

No response. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SLOAN. If I may respond, FinCEN has been tasked with developing a model to determine the magnitude of money laundering.

Mrs. MINK. Well, just give me the figure that you deal with on

a daily basis, when it’s running through your heads in terms of the

magnitude of the problem. Is $600 billion about right?

Mr. SLOAN. I’d say that most experts would say $600 billion.

Mrs. MINK. Is about right? And what percentage, then, which is

my real question, of this money laundering occurs within the

United States? Is there a buzz number that goes through your

brain in similar thought processes in figuring out how much of this

is within the United States?

Mr. SLOAN. One of the measures that FinCEN explored in trying

to determine a model for the magnitude of money laundering

project were the proceeds of crime, in this case specifically the proceeds of narcotics crimes. And if I’m not mistaken, I don’t have the

statistics in front of me, but ONDCP figures for 1999 estimate that

roughly $63 billion was spent on illegal narcotics in the United

States.

Mrs. MINK. $63 billion within the United States. Is that a figure

that all five of you—— Mr. SLOAN. I believe that’s the figure that ONDCP reported in

its 2000 strategy.

Mrs. MINK. That’s the total traffic in illegal drugs within the

United States in 1 year?

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Mr. SLOAN. The cash spent on illegal drugs, yes.

Mrs. MINK. Now, how much of that is traceable in all of your

money laundering investigation? How much of that can you actually trace? Where does it go and how does it get out of the country?

Mr. SLOAN. From our perspective, there’s two issues that are

raised, from FinCEN’s perspective. First of all, that’s a lot of cash.

Mrs. MINK. A lot of shoe boxes.

Mr. SLOAN. Exactly right. It’s a lot of shoe boxes in so-called

stash houses in Miami and in Los Angeles and New York. And it’s

5s, 10s, 20s, 50s and 100s. In fact, one statistic I think was mentioned earlier, that a kilo of cocaine is the equivalent of 21⁄2 kilos

of cash. So clearly the drug dealer has to get his proceeds into the

financial system somehow in order to benefit from the street sales.

Mrs. MINK. Is this money invested in some way in American

businesses, construction, buildings, whatever?

Mr. SLOAN. In some instances it works its way through the black

market peso exchange, which I can defer to my colleagues to discuss in greater detail. But from FinCEN’s perspective, the key to

our success is catching the placement of that $63 billion as closely

as possible as it tries to enter the financial system.

Mrs. MINK. How much of that do you have a handle on, of the $63 billion?

Mr. SLOAN. I don’t have a figure on that that I’d be prepared to

discuss today.

Mrs. MINK. Just a general top of your head estimate?

Mr. SLOAN. I wouldn’t even venture a guess, frankly. I don’t

know if anybody else would want to comment. But the point I was

going to make, as far as the money getting into the system, was

the reason that we have the protocols in place within the Bank Secrecy Act to capture, for instance, $10,000 deposits in cash. Although $10,000 may not be a lot of money, it’s a lot of cash, and

the fact that the drug dealer has to get the money from the socalled stash houses into the financial system, it’s important for us

to maintain those requirements and to analyze that information

and report back to the law enforcement community.

Bottom line is it helps law enforcement follow the trail which is

ultimately getting to the drug dealer.

Mrs. MINK. With respect to these 15 countries that have been

named now by this special group, take Nauru that you mentioned

specifically. Why isn’t is possible under U.S. laws to simply cut

them off in terms of the allowance of any of their money coming

into the United States?

Mr. WECHSLER. The only authority that we have under United

States law right now is the International Emergency Economic

Power Act which would prohibit totally all business relations between Americans and anyone, in this case in Nauru, or any Nauru

citizen anywhere in the world. This is the provision that was used

against Iraq and Syria.

Mrs. MINK. But if we utilize that law against Nauru——

Mr. WECHSLER. We have not used that law against Nauru, nor

have we used it against money laundering. It is a one size fits all

rule. It does not distinguish between dirty money and legitimate

money. And the law that we have, the bill that passed under the

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proach, would give us the authority to be able to target that, to be

able to cutoff correspondent relationships which goes more to your

question, between the United States and Nauru, should that prove

necessary.

Which right now, the Treasury Department does not have that

authority. Other countries, should we go in that direction and

should Nauru not improve its laws, might be able to take that kind

of action. But the United States cannot. And we see this as being

a hole in our comprehensive efforts, integrated efforts to combat

money laundering, one that we very much hope that the Congress

will fill this session.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I recognize the gentleman from Maryland,

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I wish this was on C–SPAN so

that my constituents, the guys who are on the corner selling the

drugs, could hear this. And I really do mean that. Let me tell you

why I say that. You know, in Baltimore, we have a real big problem with drugs. And the thing that I hear over and over again is,

Mr. Cummings, there’s no desire on this country’s part, and I don’t

agree with this, by the way, to shut down drugs, because if you

shut down drugs, you shut down the whole country. I have heard

that so many times.

And when I think about the kind of money that we’re talking

about here, it’s a lot of money. And I guess there is some truth to

that, that if you shut down drugs, you shut down a whole lot of

folks. Congresswoman Maxine Waters has spent a lot of time addressing this whole issue of our domestic banks and how they may

be playing in this whole money laundering game. She has over and

over again on the floor of the House questioned whether we’re

doing all that we can do to address the domestic banks.

And I’m just wondering, would most of this be hard to do without

the cooperation, the things that you all have talked about, would

it be hard to do without the cooperation of domestic banks? In

other words, I know there are some pieces that you would not need

them for. But what would you need domestic banks for as far as

these kinds of efforts are concerned?

Ms. WARREN. We need the cooperation of the banks in terms of

their reporting, they provide us the information that lets us proceed against the launderers and the traffickers, that create the

paper trail. And so we depend on the banks to do that.

But we don’t always treat them as friends. We’ve prosecuted a

great number of U.S. banks as well as worldwide financial institutions. We have a chart of those prosecutions, and I’ll gladly submit

it to the subcommittee so that you can see the number of financial

institutions that we have prosecuted in Federal court over the

years.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And those prosecutions, I guess you can sort of

pinpoint a person or persons in the banks, or do you find, there’s

a tendency that there’s a group of people at the top that are doing

these things?

Ms. WARREN. We have to be able to, just under traditional principles of corporate liability that we have to show that they’ve had

some knowledge, and were taking actions for the benefit of the

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bank. We do that as part of our proof and proceed against those

institutions.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you’ve seen, of the cases that you’ve talked

about, the number of cases that you just talked about, I take it

that you’re saying that in many of those cases, there are folk at the

top who know what’s going on?

Ms. WARREN. Know at the top and want the extra commissions,

the extra interest of all that cash-flowing through. And for that,

we’ll prosecute them as money launderers.

Mr. CUMMINGS. This increase, the last 4 years, amount increased

from $300 billion to $600 billion, what would you say aided that?

What happened there?

Mr. WECHSLER. Well, I can say, one of the, while numbers, of

course, on money laundering, like numbers of crime, are difficult

to pin down, one of the trends that we have seen just in the last

number of years is that because of advances in technologies, because of the internet, because communication is so easy around the

world, that again, places that previously were physically remote,

that were not significant players in the international financial system, now suddenly can be connected all over the world. So one of

the negative trends that we’ve seen just in the last couple of years

is some of these places setting themselves up as money laundering

havens. And that’s what the Financial Action Task Force just yesterday, with United States strong participation and leadership,

tried to take some of the strong initial steps to crack down on.

Of course, the other trend that’s good is that developed centers

have just in the last decade really started to improve their antimoney laundering regimes. So again you have these two trends,

one going in a positive direction and one sadly going in a very negative direction because of changes in technology.

Mr. CUMMINGS. What’s going to happen with that list of 15 countries? What do we do with that?

Mr. WECHSLER. We’re going to do a couple of things. First, we’re

going to expand it as the months go on. But there is already seeing

some market reaction. I saw a wire report that Standard and Poors

downgraded their rating for one of the major banks in Liechtenstein, which was on the list. And this kind of market reaction

that you see gives teeth to naming and shaming.

But we can’t just rely on markets to solve this problem for us.

We are going to work, the United States and with our allies in

FATF, with those countries to bring them up to international

standards, to U.S. standards, on how to do a comprehensive antimoney laundering regime. And then once again, if there are countries that refuse to do this, we will have to try to take aggressive

actions against them to penalize them for that behavior. And once

again, we really need more tools in order to do that effectively.

Mr. CUMMINGS. This subcommittee, and I do give the chairman

a lot of credit, and it has been a bipartisan effort, we’ve done everything we know how to try to make sure that the tools that law enforcement needs are there in order to do the job that you all have

to do. And we do have a tremendous amount of respect for what

you do, because it is a very important job, and I’m sure you get

your share of criticism.

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But one of the things that I have learned since I’ve been on this

subcommittee now several years is that this problem, I mean, not

just money laundering, but the whole drug problem, is much greater than I ever imagined. And I ask you this question based upon

that. Other than H.R. 3886, what tools, what if any tools do you

need from the Congress? And I’m talking about, do you feel like

you have sufficient resources to do the things that you all need to

do in your various departments? Do you need legislation more than

what we’ve talked about here today?

I mean, if you had a wish list that was a reasonable wish list

that falls within the confines of our collective belief, that is we as

Congress persons, that money should be spent, tax dollars should

be spent effectively and efficiently, what if anything don’t you have

that you think you need from us?

Ms. WARREN. Could I start just with the legislation, just to remind the subcommittee that we need the international money laundering new authorities that we’re seeking.

But we also need the money laundering authorities for prosecutors and investigators that are under the Money Laundering Act of

2000, H.R. 4695. It creates new crimes, the smuggling of cash

across the border, gives us new jurisdiction to reach those foreign

banks that have done business in the United States, allows us to

go after currency couriers as criminals. Those are the kinds of tools

we need so these people don’t slip through the net. And we want

to work with you in perfecting that legislation.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Anyone else?

Mr. VARRONE. If I may add, Mr. Cummings, the administration’s

budget for the Customs Service in 2001 includes a variety of initiatives. Some are personnel resources, and some are technology. We

don’t have x-ray machinery at all major ports in the country. It’s

equipment like that that helps us in our outbound bulk cash enforcement activity. So there are a variety of other elements to that

budget, but clearly support for that, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Is that it?

Mr. WECHSLER. The one other thing I’d like to add is with this

budget cycle, the Treasury Department has asked for a new centralized account to help us implement the key action items in the

new money laundering strategy. One of those, and we can get for

you the breakdown of what that money would be, to make sure

that this committee is fully abreast of that budgetary initiative.

That would be on top of the important requests for money that

Customs, FinCEN and the other bureaus are asking for the Treasury Department.

One of the things that also would be in this account would be

seed grants for local law enforcement to get better trained and

equipped to fight money laundering, because money laundering is

a complicated issue that not all State and local law enforcement

have the capacity right now to fight as effectively as they could.

And we are just starting this program, the CFIC program, as it’s

called, to give seed grants. The applications just went out last

week, I believe, from the Treasury and the Justice Departments.

We are asking for more money for that program, because we think

State and local could also do a lot more.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Just one last question—yes, Ms. Warren.

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Ms. WARREN. Could I just make sure that the Justice Department appropriations are also looked favorably upon for law enforcement and the prosecutors, so that we can try and keep pace with

the problem.

One other bill I didn’t mention is Congresswoman Roukema’s

anti-bulk smuggling bill that of course we support completely.

That’s H.R. 240.

Mr. WECHSLER. The Treasury Department seconds that, of

course.

Mr. CUMMINGS. One last question to Mr. Guillen. You were talking about the bulk money going into Mexico and you said something to the effect that when that money goes over the border, it’s

less vulnerable to discovery by law enforcement officers because of

our certain trade policies. I think that’s what you were saying, is

that accurate?

Mr. GUILLEN. No, I don’t think so.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me ask you this. Just give me the logistics

of this. Somebody is coming, I don’t know whether this would be

your question, Mr. Varrone, I’m talking about Customs, more or less, somebody has $1 million in the truck coming across the border. What happens? Coming across the Mexican border. He’s got $1

million. So what happens? In some kind of way, you discover he’s

got $1 million. It’s not like you have dogs that sniff it out, but you

somehow you discover it. What happens than?

Mr. VARRONE. Most of the time, sir, the bulk cash that we’re

intercepting, as the exhibit here to my right indicates, in south

Texas alone, we made 228 seizures just this fiscal year for about

$6 million. But most of the bulk cash is outbound. On the inbound

side, we don’t see that kind of volume. But in an outbound, the percentage of resources that we dedicate to outbound is approximately

10 percent. We are so concentrated on the inbound activity that we

don’t have a large inspectional force that does outbound inspection.

So a lot of it gets driven through the investigative activity.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

I had just a final question or two here. Mr. Varrone, could you

tell the subcommittee a little bit more about the use of gold in

money laundering, and what kinds of cases Customs is now pursuing and what kinds of challenges that creates? This seems to be a

new conduit for money laundering.

Mr. VARRONE. The gold phenomenon, while this news article

shows it as a new, emerging trend, it’s been around for years, the

precious metals, the gold, diamonds. If you recall back in the early

1990’s, there was a significant national operation, a multi-agency

operation called Polar Cap, where all the agencies at this table

were heavily involved in it. It lasted 4 or 5 years and it was all

precious metals based.

I think at the time that we did, collectively that we did that investigation that we had a lot of success identifying violators and

putting gold, domestic people who were involved in the industry,

out of business. But I don’t think that we either understood at that

time or focused on this black market relationship to the black market peso exchange activity. So I think that it’s really just a recurring theme, not necessarily a new and emerging theme.

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And second to that would be that we have numerous cases that

do involve the precious metals industry that are ongoing. Of course,

I can’t speak to them here. But the ones that we have had and had

success at clearly support the concept that the black market peso

exchange is the predominant method there.

We have a system in place now, a computer system called a numerically integrated profile system, which helps us identify disparities. And we’ve been at the forefront of identifying the disparities

in the gold import-export from Colombia to the United States, and

have pointed out, as you can see in that article, many of those

anomalies.

We’re actively trying to investigate those, and where we can,

we’re sharing with the Colombian Government certain information

that they may be able to do some proactive things. But it’s a rule

based computer system that analyzes trade disparities.

Mr. MICA. I guess to make money laundering and combating

money laundering a priority in agencies a directive would have to

come from either I guess the Attorney General, one of the primary

jurisdictional principles, or the Secretary of the Treasury, I guess.

Are there letters or edicts or communications that set forth money

laundering as a priority, Ms. Warren?

Ms. WARREN. Yes. There is a joint memorandum that went out

from the Secretary of Treasury and the Attorney General to the

Federal prosecutors as well as the Federal agency heads.

Mr. MICA. When was that, and could you provide this subcommittee with a copy?

Ms. WARREN. A copy can be provided, and it was in March, a few

months ago. It directed them to the importance of following the

money, the importance of looking at every possible investigative

technique, and training our personnel.

Mr. MICA. And for the record, just provide us a copy. And then

any of the items that were outlined, maybe a brief progress report

since it was issued.

The other thing that is necessary is resources to go after combating money laundering in the budgets of the Department of Justice

and Treasury Department. Were there additional resources requested in the budgets and what’s the status of those? Maybe you

could start with Justice. Ms. Warren, are you familiar?

Ms. WARREN. I know that each of the components have requested

over the past few years additional money.

Mr. MICA. I’m talking about in fiscal year 2001.

Ms. WARREN. I’m just not that familiar and I can only answer

generically.

Mr. MICA. Could you provide that for the committee, too? Because I think it’s important that we see what has been requested

and then where we are, particularly at this critical time in the appropriations process. We have a problem if you aren’t requesting

the resources, because God knows everybody requests all kinds of

things from us. But we have a problem if you’re not requesting

them.

And then if the request is in jeopardy or if there is a problem,

this is the perfect time to look at that. Who’s from Treasury? I

guess we are sort of stuck with Mr. Varrone. He’s down the pike.

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Mr. VARRONE. Well, I can say that the Treasury Department’s

budget—— Mr. MICA. I’m sorry, I apologize, Mr. Wechsler. I had to pick on

Mr. Varrone because I know him better. But it looks like you’re up

the pike. Can you provide us with the same information?

Mr. WECHSLER. Absolutely. And the requests have increased this

year. And we would love to work with you.

Mr. MICA. Specifically to go after money laundering?

Mr. WECHSLER. Specifically for money laundering.

Mr. MICA. You don’t know the status of that request?

Mr. WECHSLER. We will get you all the numbers and status, sir.

Mr. MICA. Can you? Because it’s nice to have these hearings, but

if we aren’t doing something to see that our investigations and

oversight are translated into some actions, we’re all wasting our

time.

I have no further questions. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just want to thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I thank the panelists. We appreciate your

participation and look forward to your working with us to make

this a more effective effort.

I’ll call our second panel this morning. The second panel this

morning consists of two individuals. The first is Mr. Raymond W.

Baker, and he’s with the Center for International Policy. The second one is Mr. Kenneth Rijock, and he is an aviation and financial

crime consultant. Those are our two witnesses on this panel.

Both of you are, I think, new witnesses to the subcommittee.

This is an investigations and oversight subcommittee of the House

of Representatives, part of the Government Reform Committee. In

that regard, we do swear in our witnesses. Also, if you have any

lengthy statement, more than 5 minutes, we’d like you to submit

that for the record and summarize verbally to the subcommittee

your comments. Upon request, your entire statement will be made

part of the record, and we’ll also upon request include additional

data, information and background as part of the record.

You can remain standing. Please raise your rights hand to be

sworn.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. The witnesses answered in the affirmative. I’m

pleased to welcome both of you this morning to provide your insight and testimony to our subcommittee on the problem of money

laundering. Hopefully, we can hear also some of your recommendations for doing a better job in that regard.

I’d like to recognize first Mr. Raymond W. Baker, and he is with

the Center for International Policy. Welcome, sir, and you’re recognized.

STATEMENTS OF RAYMOND W. BAKER, CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL POLICY; AND KENNETH W. RIJOCK, AVIATION

AND FINANCIAL CRIME CONSULTANT

Mr. BAKER. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. I am

Raymond Baker, a senior fellow at the Center for International

Policy, and recently a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution

studying money laundering and flight capital.

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I would like to put forward and elaborate briefly on three points.

One, there has been an absolute explosion in the volume of dirty

money during this, the first decade of the globalizing world. Two,

the U.S. Treasury Department estimates that 99.9 percent of the

laundered criminal money that is presented for deposit in the

United States gets comfortably into secure accounts. Three, at the

core of our anti-money laundering efforts for many years has resided a basic intellectual flaw.

The issue of dirty money can be most easily approached by

breaking it down into its three principal, though sometimes

intermixed, components: criminal, corrupt and commercial. The

criminal component arises from the proceeds of scheduled crimes

that violate anti-money laundering legislation. The corrupt component refers to receipts generated through bribery and theft by foreign government officials. The commercial component is

transactionally procured and derived from tax evasion out of other

countries, also called illegal flight capital.

The criminal component of dirty money is often estimated at per- haps $500 billion to $600 billion a year. The corrupt component I

have estimated at $20 billion to $40 billion per year. And while it

is the smallest of the three, it has a multiplier effect on the other

two.

The commercial component I have also studied and would put at roughly $500 billion a year, comparable to the criminal component.

The combination of the three, therefore, amasses to more than $1

trillion a year, passing into western coffers. Other estimates range

from a half trillion to $3 trillion annually. But regardless of where

the most accurate figure rests, dirty money clearly constitutes the

biggest loophole in the free market system.

Virtually all of this flow is facilitated by business people and

bankers in the United States and Europe, often acting lawfully or

taking advantage of gaps, ambiguities and contradictions in laws,

regulations and enforcement. In my written statement, I have provided a number of examples of this. Suffice it to say that it is the

process of cooperation in moving corrupt and tax evading money

that undermines our ability to curtail the flow of criminal money.

Dirty money from corruption and commercial tax evasion brings

the benefit of several hundred billion dollars a year spread across

the United States and Europe in bank deposits, markets and properties. The cost of this inflow can be seen in the impact on both

our domestic and foreign interests. Domestically, the proceeds of

tax evasion and corruption provide the cover that is necessary for

laundering of criminal money, making it possible for 99.9 percent

of laundered money, Treasury’s own estimate, to pass into U.S. accounts.

Indeed, the easiest thing for criminals to do is to make their

criminal money look like it is merely corrupt or tax evading money.

And when they do, we usher it readily into our economy. Our pursuit of corrupt wealth and illegal flight capital effectively removes

anti-money laundering as an instrument in our fight against drugs,

crime and terrorism.

Similarly, concerning our foreign interests, the pursuit of dirty

money erodes our strategic objectives in the transitional economies

of former communist countries and badly impairs economic

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progress in developing countries, contributing to political instability.

For many years, an implicit cost benefit analysis has suggested

that the inflow of corrupt and tax evading money into the United

States is beneficial. In fact, that case cannot be made. Current U.S.

laws, regulations and government practices attempt to attack

criminal money while preserving our opportunity to solicit and welcome corrupt and tax evading money. With this approach, the

United States would never effectively curtail the staggering inflow

of criminal proceeds.

Therein lies the intellectual flaw. This contradictory process simply cannot work.

Mr. Chairman, we have a decision to make as a society. Which

is more important to us, to fight drugs, crime and terrorism with

all legal and reasonable means at our disposal? Or to pursue the

billions in corrupt and tax evading dollars that can be drawn out

of other countries into our economy? This decision will significantly

influence the outcome of the issues that have been so important to

you.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Baker follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony.

I’m now pleased to recognize Mr. Kenneth Rijock, an aviation

and financial crime consultant. Welcome, sir. You’re recognized and

we appreciate your coming forward to testify.

Mr. RIJOCK. Thank you, sir. I’d like to thank the subcommittee

and Chairman Mica for the invitation to testify today on international money laundering and its relationship to illegal drug trafficking.

My name is Kenneth Rijock, and I was for 10 years a career

money launderer for narcotics trafficking organizations who smuggled drugs through Florida and thereafter distributed them

throughout the United States and Canada. It was my responsibility

to ensure that the proceeds of narcotics crime made it safely

through the world banking system and into the tax havens, whose

offshore jurisdictions attracted dirty money by combining bank secrecy with a legal obscenity known as corporation secrecy.

I was able to operate with virtual invincibility from law enforcement attack due to these laws. The tax havens are the most powerful ally drug traffickers have. Without a protected venue to hold

their wealth in transition, these vast funds would be exposed to

seizure and forfeiture. Only by targeting their illegal activities and

shutting down their operations can we hope to seriously impact the

money laundering activities of narcotics traffickers.

After serving time in Federal prison for my crimes, I have spent

the last 8 years teaching money laundering techniques to law enforcement, my former adversaries. I teach from my own personal

experience and from my study of the developing dynamics of money

laundering tactics and strategy, with the goal of stopping the investment of the end results of drug crime into our domestic economy.

I believe that the international money laundering situation is out

of control in the western hemisphere, and our efforts to date have

failed to seriously impact or damage its successful operation. We

simply have not efficiently mobilized our law enforcement resources

to either interdict or suppress the crime. Remembering that the

cash profits of narcotics activity are the sole weak link in the never

ending story of drug commerce, our Government must recognize

that current efforts are not working, and make a quantum leap to

a different type of comprehensive program, one that gets results.

Present efforts are reactive, not proactive, and at best expose

only a small percentage of ongoing money laundering operations.

Let’s talk about some of the fundamental weaknesses of our current efforts. Perhaps by understanding the inherent problems, we

can strive for a positive solution.

First, our law enforcement efforts are largely conducted by

agents and officers without advanced degrees in finance and law,

and who have generally never worked in a commercial business

setting. How can we expect them to uncover money laundering

crime if they don’t have a clear understanding of the day to day

business operations with all their complexities of our economy?

We must establish long term educational requirements for these

law enforcement agencies entrusted with the responsibility for

money laundering interdiction. Post-graduate degrees in relevant

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and important fields should be encouraged, subsidized and required.

Second, the rotation system in general use by Federal law enforcement, where an agent is routinely transferred to a new location and assignment just when he is becoming proficient at his current job, has got to change. One of the lessons of the Vietnam conflict was that this practice takes the experienced person away at

the wrong time. Frankly, I don’t subscribe to the notion that variety for the purposes of career enhancement is more important than

getting the job done. I have seen far too many instances of newly

transferred unit commanders needing several months to become familiar with and proficient in their new assignments. This simply

has to change.

Third, I can tell you from personal experience that narcotics traffickers and their money laundering cohorts exploit law enforcement’s seniority system. When all of your experienced senior

agents are watching the Redskins game on Sunday, leaving more

junior, inexperienced hands on duty during the infinite number of

off days and legal holidays, the dope comes in and the money goes

out right past the people least qualified to recognize what’s happening.

Duty assignments can no longer reward those with the most time

in grade. We need those people in the field during high risk periods.

Fourth, let’s take a page from the business world. The airlines

of the United States routinely hire experienced military aviators to

be commercial pilots because they are qualified. But instead of hiring qualified individuals from the ranks of the business world, our

Federal law enforcement draws upon State and local enforcement

where it is most unlikely they will obtain agents with the skills

necessary to identify and interdict financial crime.

I realize that we’ll have to pay these new hires from the private

sector more money than a young State or local police officer. But

we need business experience in the field of business crime.

Fifth, we fail to field a sufficient number of law enforcement staff

in money laundering investigations. The agents are vastly outnumbered by the number of major money laundering operators.

How can we hope to make serious inroads affecting the multi-billion dollar multi-laundering engine when we fail to detail sufficient

staff to the task? Not to mention that the actual dimensions of the

scope of money laundering activities are unknown and nobody

seems overly concerned about this critical gap in our knowledge.

Another applicable lesson from the Vietnam conflict was the failure of our Government to realize how vastly outnumbered our infantry was in the field. I fear that we are understaffed in money

laundering investigations in every major city where a substantial

amount of international trade occurs.

Last, we must adequately train our investigators. Send them to

the tax havens to learn the mechanics of offshore banking. Take

them into several financial institutions to understand the problems

and vulnerabilities. Instruct them in generally accepted accounting

procedures. Show them money laundering scenarios from the perspective of how they can be detected through adequate knowledge

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of business practices. Only then can we expect to glean acceptable

results.

After we have properly equipped our law enforcement to meet

the challenges of international money laundering, we must then

support them in their efforts by moving forward, by passing pending legislation which will assist them. The prohibition of commerce

with tax haven banks and the Bulk Cash Smuggling Act are but

two notable examples of how this could be accomplished.

We must also begin to strictly enforce the laws we have. No federally chartered commercial bank has ever lost its charter for

money laundering violations, no matter how serious the crime. Senior bank officers themselves are rarely indicted for money laundering. The institution simply pays a multi-million dollar fine.

This has got to change. Only now are we going to name and ostracize the most blatant offshore tax haven banks. We still don’t indict their presidents and directors for violation of the Money Laundering Control Act. Make no mistake: money laundering is financial terrorism. And unless we change the way we attack its operations, it will not only flourish, but continue to impact our lives in

an adverse manner, whether through the hotel in Georgetown purchased with laundered funds or soft money funneled to achieve the

goals of criminal enterprise, or economic control of a friendly Third

World country.

If we don’t vigorously attack its machinery, and disrupt its operations, then the influence and power of narcotics traffickers will

continue to grow.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rijock follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you both for your testimony.

Reading back through your testimony, the testimony of our first

witness, Mr. Baker, you cite the problem, and I’m concerned that

I don’t see harder recommendations for solutions. We know what

the problem is, everybody’s testified that there’s a dramatic increase in money laundering. Some of your recommendations here,

consistency of regulatory requirements and oversight of major sectors of community.

Again, maybe we could take a specific example. We received information from the Russian Central Bank that this island nation,

this small island nation, is moving $70 billion. Now, that seems

fairly easy to track that in money flowing back into the U.S. banks.

Why can’t we get a handle on going after these folks or making it

a matter of policy to search out money laundering in a case like

that?

Mr. BAKER. Mr. Chairman, let me comment on the Russian situation a bit more broadly, if I may. Out of Russia has come something on the order of $200 billion to $500 billion over the past decade, the greatest illicit diversion of resources that has ever come

out of any country in a short period of time. Much of that money

was criminal in origin, much of it was tax evading in origin, much

of it was theft by government officials. It was a combination of all.

Let’s take Bank of New York, for example. Bank of New York

went across the financial landscape of Russia with a vacuum cleaner and sucked up every correspondent banking relationship it

could, perhaps not every one. But my understanding is several

hundred.

I would respectfully suggest that in the process of establishing

several hundred correspondent banking relationships in Russia,

you know going into that situation that you’re going to be handling

a combination of criminal and corrupt and commercially tax evading money, a combination of stolen money. You know that. That

was perfectly legal for them to do, to establish such correspondent

banking relationships.

Now, how can we necessarily expect to be able to control what’s

going on in Nauru when we can’t control what’s going on in New

York City? We’ve received a great deal of money from Russia

through correspondent banks.

Mr. MICA. My question is, we know the money’s coming in in direct transfers and also through sham transfers, through several

other banking institutions, or covered corporations, whatever, we

have uncovered incredible sums of illegal money. We have an instance here with an island nation where the Russian banks give us

information of $70 billion going through a small island nation. And

I don’t know that we really pursued that particular case actively.

Is this a lack of will, a lack of policy, a lack of law, a lack of being

able to deal with that kind of transfer activity?

Mr. BAKER. Certainly we are hamstrung by a lack of law. The

solution to the problem is to have the power to cutoff correspondent

banking relationships.

Mr. MICA. You’re saying that there is a lack of law that does not

allow us to go after, if we know where that $70 billion was transferred into the United States, we can’t touch it or go after it?

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Mr. BAKER. That’s my understanding, Mr. Chairman. It normally

is transferred in in the form of overnight deposits and frequently

transferred back out again in the form of overnight deposits. It’s

the ability to cutoff the overnight deposits from tax havens and

bank secrecy jurisdictions that would give us the power of putting

such island tax havens out of business.

Mr. MICA. You testified, sir, that you didn’t feel our policy was

proactive.

Mr. RIJOCK. No, sir, I do not. Going back to your example, you

wanted to know why the gentlemen that were sitting at this table

can’t give you a straight answer to the question of where is this

money. The short answer is that the level of sophistication of international money laundering is frankly beyond the capabilities of the

average law enforcement individual.

Most law enforcement agencies neither have the budget, the inclination or the staffing to send six people tonight to Nauru, posing

as tourists, to spend 3 months there, riding around in taxicabs, acquiring intelligence, talking to individuals, engaging in bogus

transactions, to learn how it works. Not to mention the fact that

the moment they get off the plane, they’re made by somebody in

the hire of one of these institutions or one of the criminal cartels.

The transfers that you’re referring to, sir, are intricate and quite

complex. They involve what’s called layering. What would happen

is, let’s take $5 million sitting in a bank account in Nauru. The

next day it goes to Taiwan; 2 days later, it’s in the account of a

French mortgage company; 3 weeks later it ends up in a Panamanian corporation with bearer shares.

It ends up being used to obtain a loan in a western European

country, totally kosher. Comes into the United States and only if

somebody wants to backtrack 17 steps and has the time and is not

under pressure from his own bureaucracy to come up with fast results, can that individual actually criss-cross the globe and come up

with those answers.

And if money laundering institutions which are very well organized by now know that, we’re not talking about people from Miami

with gold around their neck, sir. We’re talking about people with

Ivy League law and MBA degrees who sit in some of the biggest

cities in the United States and form overseas companies without so

much as picking up a telephone. We’re talking about organizations

that are so sophisticated that they almost defy description.

And they’ve been in place now for 20 years, they’re getting better

and better. And that’s why more money is moving.

Mr. MICA. Do you believe that there are enough laws on the

books or adequate laws to deal with this situation, domestically?

And then what are the problems internationally?

Mr. RIJOCK. Well, the international problem appears to be a failure of purpose. We treat Iraq, Iran and any other terrorist country

to a level at which we can deal with the problem. Financial terrorism is money laundering. And we have yet to come to the conclusion that that’s just as much a clear and present danger to our

country as gas warfare from Iraq.

In 1 week, we could shut down these tax havens. But nobody in

the present administration, quite candidly, wants to pick up the

ticket for that. All we would have to do, sir, is No. 1, shut off air

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travel, just like we do to the terrorist nations. No. 2, declare that

for national security purposes there shall be no more banking relations between American banks and banks in those tax haven countries.

And three, let’s take all these foreign branches that all of our big

banks in the United States have in the tax havens and let’s declare

them defunct. Our Government has got the ability to do these

things. As to whether or not somebody’s going to get serious with

it is another story.

The traffickers just keep making more and more money. Last

year, they literally took over the government in St. Kitts. And they

turned it into the world’s first narco-dictatorship. Well, that’s the

shape of things to come. We’re going to find that more and more

of these tax havens are going to have so much wealth and so much

power they don’t need our tax dollars, they don’t need our aid

money, they don’t need anything from us except to be a conduit for

dirty money, sir.

Mr. MICA. Well, the other problem we have is even if we gave

Treasury, say, the authority to cutoff correspondent bank accounts,

would the Treasury use that authority, the will to even implement

that type of action. What do you think, Mr. Baker?

Mr. BAKER. That’s the key question, Mr. Chairman, would we

have the will to do so. And I’m not certain of that. These sums

bring a great deal of money into the United States. And they are

mixed, criminal inflows are mixed with commercial and corrupt

inflows. And we have not yet decided that we want to cutoff the

whole of the dirty money problem.

If I may, Mr. Chairman, comment a bit on Mr. Rijock’s statement. I agree with his analysis of how you move money from one

place to another. And he says this has been going on for 20 years.

I would like to make the point that the process of moving corrupt

and tax evading money out of developing countries and now transitional economies has been going on for decades and decades, a long

time. It is precisely the same process. There’s no difference in the

process.

We created the channels through which that kind of money

flows. Money launderers have not invented any new ways of doing

this. They have merely stepped into the same procedures that we

have cultivated and used to move corrupt and tax evading money.

For 35 years, I’ve been in the private sector before coming to

Brookings Institution, doing business all over the world, including

consulting and advisory work. I have never heard of a scheme in

the business of moving criminal money that I have not observed

first in the business of moving corrupt and tax evading money. We

attach the name money laundering to that part of the process that

we don’t like. We attach the names good business and good banking to the parts of the process that we do like.

But the process is the same across all three forms of dirty money.

Mr. MICA. So Mr. Rijock, you have cited both in your testimony

and in response to a question that the need to really have a qualified force of professionals, because this is a very complex trail that

you have to pursue and it takes a certain amount of skills. And you

say that we don’t have those forces in place to deal with the modVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:11 Jun 11, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00124 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\72447.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ern transactional pattern that these money launderers are developing.

Mr. RIJOCK. Well, our problem, sir, is that we generally take our

law enforcement from people who are already on duty and transition people who are involved in interdicting other crimes into financial crime. We don’t take people who have come from a business

background. That’s a rare exception in my experience.

I’ve been teaching money laundering all across North American

for 8 years. And I’ll stand up in front of the class and I’ll hold up

a copy of Money Laundering Alert, which for anybody in this business, it’s the Time magazine of money laundering. Two-thirds of

the people in the room won’t even know what it is, which means

that there’s a basic lack of information intake.

Mr. MICA. They also trashed it today.

Mr. RIJOCK. Yes, I understand that, sir, because of the article on

the 24 percent.

Mr. MICA. It appears that they’ve at least monitored the same

type of activity, which was prime money laundering case referrals

over that period. So that should be an accurate reflection or at

least a snapshot of that activity?

Mr. RIJOCK. Well, sir, the basic problem is priorities. If you were

to take somebody in Federal law enforcement and ask them which

do they want to go after first, the drugs or the money, they will

always tell you they want the drugs today and the money tomorrow. Independent money laundering investigations where that’s the

only thing they’re going after is a money laundering syndicate, are

not anything compared to the number of criminal narcotics investigations.

And that’s where we go wrong. Because we’re not putting up a

Chinese wall between our white collar crime people and our drug

people. Problem being that there’s always going to be pressure to

show results that play very well on the 6 o’clock news. And 500

kilos of cocaine looks a lot better than one cashier’s check for $100

million from a bank in the South Pacific. That’s the basic problem,

it’s a priority problem.

Mr. MICA. Well, we know who some of the enemies are. Now

they’ve identified them, I think they’ve identified the 15 top offenders. What do you think should be done next? It doesn’t sound like

they have a game plan in place to deal with these top offenders.

How would you proceed?

Mr. RIJOCK. Sir, when I teach my class, I hand out to them a list

produced by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue in 1981, which

lists all of the major tax havens of the world. With a few additions,

it’s basically the same. We have known for two decades about these

tax havens. Calling them outlaw financial institutions,

denominating them as such, doesn’t do anything. If you look at a

few days before the FATF came out with its list, all of a sudden

you find that both Bermuda and the Cayman Islands are now rushing to say that they are now going to expose their records to us for

tax evasion issues.

However, if you look at it closely, you’ll see that they’ll do some

of it in 2003 and the balance by 2005. Well, I can tell you from my

own experience that within 1 week, I would have moved all of my

clients’ dirty money out of the Cayman Islands and into a tax

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haven not on the list or too new to be recognized, or created just

for that purpose.

And it’s just window dressing, sir. Calling them tax havens, all

it does is put it out in the public what everybody has known for

two decades. We need to do something a lot more proactive. And

that is, we need to make them financial pariahs. If we don’t do

that, we’ll never stop it.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Baker.

Mr. BAKER. Mr. Chairman, going along with Mr. Rijock’s point,

I have stated earlier, 4 or some months ago, that I would give these

tax havens and bank secrecy jurisdictions 18 months to pass U.S.

anti-money laundering scrutiny. And if they did not do so by implementing the necessary anti-money laundering procedures that are

required by FATF, the 40 recommended procedures, then they

would lose their correspondent banking relationships with the

United States at the end of that time.

That’s a tough approach. I would give them no more than 18

months to satisfy us that their anti-money laundering procedures

are in place and working.

Mr. MICA. Possibly we need money laundering certification law

that would encompass that provision. That might be interesting.

Mr. RIJOCK. The problem, sir, is time. And we don’t have time

any more. Because narcotics traffickers have had so many years to

consolidate their gains, to double the production of cocaine. If we’re

going to wait 18 months to finally clamp down the hammer, 18

months from now the FARC may control Colombia. Eighteen

months from now, there may be more heroin on the street in Orange Country than there is in China.

We can’t really wait that long. Some group—— Mr. MICA. I think we’re already there on both accounts.

Mr. RIJOCK. I know, but some agency has to pick up the responsibility to prioritize this issue. It can no longer be one where it’s

one of the six things that the agency does, and it does it because

it’s got a mandate to do so. Frankly, although I really am a foe of

governmental bureaucracy, it might be time to create a new agency, an agency whose sole operation is to disrupt financial crime.

Not to handle kidnappings, not to handle narcotics. Just to go after

the proceeds of crime.

And we have to remember that that’s what this is. These funds

are the proceeds of crime. We cannot stop narcotics from coming

into this country in a free and open society. But we can sure as

heck shut down these organizations by taking away their profits.

Mr. MICA. Would you recommend that both on a domestic and

international or separate them out?

Mr. RIJOCK. Well, I think, frankly, the international sphere is the

one in which we have fallen down so far. That’s the one in which,

when I have a group of students in the room and I find that not

one of them has ever even been to the tax havens, how would they

even understand and identify the problem if they’re not familiar

with it?

Granted, it’s a much more difficult task if you couple domestic

with international money laundering. Domestic money laundering,

thank God, it’s here. We can seize assets here, we can arrest bankers, we can arrest individuals. Overseas, people may be totally imVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:11 Jun 11, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00126 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\72447.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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mune from prosecution for political, economic or monetary reasons.

So the international one is the first priority.

I would hope that our law enforcement agencies in the United

States could eventually get a handle on domestic money laundering, as they have passed a number of the serious banking regulation code.

Mr. MICA. Are either of you familiar with whether the EU or the

U.N. are doing anything in this regard?

Mr. BAKER. The EU, Mr. Chairman, is only now in the process

of passing, EU countries are only now in the process of passing regulations to outlaw bribery of foreign government officials. Neither

of us, the EU or the United States, have yet made handling the

proceeds of corruption an offense under anti-money laundering legislation. That is included in Strategy 2000. And that’s in my judgment by far the most important provision in Strategy 2000.

It is also in the House and the Senate bills. There are other important provisions in those bills also.

Mr. MICA. Anything particularly lacking in the Strategy 2000

you might recommend to enhance the effectiveness of that legislation? Both the legislation that’s pending and also the strategy.

Mr. BAKER. The thrust of my testimony, Mr. Chairman, has been

that we have to include corruption and commercial tax evasion

within the scope of dirty money that we are trying to address. Secretary Summers made a very interesting statement at the beginning of the week. He said, ‘‘In today’s economy, it is vital that we

put an end to international tax practices that encourage tax evasion and improper tax avoidance and that disrupt capital flows.’’ Mr. Chairman, when we take that sentiment and put it into

Strategy 2001, make it a part of U.S. policy, then in my judgment

we will for the first time have taken the steps necessary to begin

to curtail the dirty money problem, including the money that is

laundered by criminals. For the first time, we will have encompassed a policy that can be effective.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Rijock.

Mr. RIJOCK. Mr. Chairman, to answer your question about the

European Union, we’re in this all by ourselves. You need to understand a little bit about money laundering history. Money laundering statutes are taken directly from the Swiss model. The only impact that the European Union now has on the tax haven countries

in the Caribbean is that they are expressing their intense displeasure with the fact that the money laundering tax havens are now

pulling money out of the European tax havens, as for example, the

Channel Islands.

We cannot expect to get any help from that quarter. Unfortunately, they complicate our problem, because they provide another

venue on a very sophisticated level. I think that money laundering

is an American problem and we need to apply an American solution.

When I used to launder cash in the Caribbean, and I would sit

out there on the porch in St. Martin and drink a cup of coffee and

watch the sun come up, I wondered, one of these days, am I ever

going to see an American aircraft carrier out there, and are the

Marines going to come ashore, arrest all the bankers, close down

the banks, take the records, take them to Miami, and charge all

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those people in Federal court with money laundering. Well, that’s

never happened. Because nobody’s decided that it’s important

enough.

And crossing the border, unfortunately, unless it’s Grenada, is

not politically correct. The bottom line, sir, is that it’s a threat to

our national security and nobody has yet reached that point in

their development.

When we find that there are rumors about narcotics traffickers

sending huge amounts of money to aid in political campaigns in the

United States, when we find that they out and out aid political

campaigns all over Central and South America, we should get nervous about that. But somehow, I’m not seeing that. It’s out of hand,

sir.

And as far as a result, it’s time for drastic measures. Because for

the Government to come in here and say, well, we’re looking at this

and maybe in 2 years we’ll have a handle on it, well, within 2

years, these organizations will make billions or trillions of dollars,

will become infinitely larger, more powerful, will hold so much

more in the way of assets that before you know it, we may find ourselves unwelcome in a number of countries in Latin America because we’re not supplying the bulk of the money. The traffickers

are.

Mr. MICA. Well, I want to thank both of you for your testimony

today. We are an investigations and oversight subcommittee of

Congress, and we are trying to look at all of the aspects of illegal

drug activity. In addition to that, we do oversee Department of Justice and some of the other agencies as far as the criminal justice

system is concerned. We are looking for solutions, looking for problem areas and how we can get a better handle on this and keep

legislation up with changing times and challenges.

And also, to pursue agencies, both their current activities and future initiatives. And that’s the purpose of today’s hearing, is to see

how we can do a better job and prompt them to action.

I want to thank both of you again for your testimony, for your

participation and contribution today. Hopefully it will help us as

we do our job.

And with that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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