House committee works to cut off traffickers’ profit pipeline
Washington,
March 5, 2020
House committee works to cut off traffickers’ profit pipeline
3/5/2020 WKRN WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – International trafficking of people, animals, drugs, and weapons is a booming business. The criminal enterprises behind it rake in about $2 trillion a year, according to Global Financial Integrity. The House Financial Services Committee is working on a plan to combat trafficking by exposing the ways criminals exploit financial systems to make and manage their money. “Unfortunately, we might have an event that will show and prove to us that it’s a major national and international security threat,” Dr. Togzhan Kassenova, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research, told the committee. “Well, that doesn’t make me feel very good,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-MO. Cleaver and his colleagues are trying to cut off the money that makes trafficking possible. “Global terrorism has merged with organized crime to create financing workarounds,” said Rep. French Hill, R-AR. Hill wants to see more collaboration between the financial and law enforcement sectors to better identify and stop the illegal transactions. From the law enforcement side, Gretchen Peters, the executive director of the Center on Illicit Network and Organized Crime, said authorities need to focus on the methods, not just what is being smuggled. “If they’re gonna make money off of it, they’ll do it,” Peters said. “What we should be focusing on is disrupting the corrupt systems and pathways that allow smuggling to occur.” From the financial side, Angel Nguyen Swift, the founder and director of Stand Together Against Trafficking, said the industry needs to be more sophisticated. “They can see the data, but they need to know what the data is telling them,” Nguyen Swift said. This was the first in a series of hearings the committee plans to hold on the topic in hopes of finding the right legislative solution. “We have done a lot of legislative nipping at the fringes on the problem,” Cleaver said. “It is now time for us to strike it at its core.” |
