Call For Laundering Crackdown
Attorney General John Ashcroft called on Congress Tuesday to strengthen laws against money laundering, saying current laws are full of loopholes that make it difficult to combat organized crime groups smuggling dirty money in and out of the country.
Ashcroft said the Justice Department plans to ask Congress in the coming months to update money laundering laws passed in the 1970s. New laws should target bulk cash smuggling, transporting cash proceeds from drug deals on highways or airplanes and foreign criminals who smuggle money into the United States, Ashcroft said.
"Our money laundering laws have not changed significantly since they were enacted," said Ashcroft in prepared remarks for a conference on organized crime. "The time has come for Congress to lead once again."
Ashcroft said Congress should:
- Make bulk cash smuggling a crime. Ashcroft said the only law currently on the books to combat smuggling is a requirement that shipments of more than $10,000 be accompanied by a report from the U.S. Customs Service. The Supreme Court has ruled that failing to file reports is not a serious enough offense to warrant confiscating the cash, so at worst couriers for organized crime serve a short jail sentences — "a virtually meaningless penalty for a drug trafficking organization," Ashcroft said.
- Make it a federal offense for people to transport over highways or on airplanes more than $10,000 in cash proceeds from a criminal offense. Ashcroft said a court threw out a case in which $10,000 in cash was seized from the trunk of a car driven by men who had prior drug convictions because it's not a crime to transport drug money down the highway.
- Expand money laundering laws to include crimes other than drugs, terrorism and bank fraud. Ashcroft said federal prosecutors often must turn down money laundering cases involving corrupt foreign public officials and organized crime groups because their crimes are not covered under U.S. money laundering laws.
Worldwide money laundering activity is estimated at $1 trillion a year, with half tied to proceeds of drug trafficking, he said.
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