US Attorney General Calls For Money Laundering Crackdown

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

10 August 2001

US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, announced Tuesday that he would be calling on Congress to strengthen money laundering laws, saying that the current legislation which was introduced in the 1970s is full of loopholes, and needs strengthening.

'Our money laundering laws have not changed significantly since they were enacted,' he told a conference on organized crime in Chicago. 'The time has come for Congress to lead once again.' Mr Ashcroft said that money laundering was often regarded as a harmless game, and was not taken seriously by the financial and legal sectors in the US, but warned that the time had come to change this attitude, as 'behind every dollar of dirty money in need of laundering is a trail of victims.'

The tougher proposals which the Justice Department plans to put to Congress over the coming months include the criminalisation of bulk cash smuggling (at present the only requirement is that shipments of over $10,000 are reported to the US Customs Service), making it a federal offense for criminals to transport over highways or on airplanes more than $10,000 in cash proceeds, and the expansion of money laundering laws to include crimes other than drugs, terrorism, and bank fraud. Mr Ascroft said that the latter proposal would repair a 'gaping hole in US law', as presently it is difficult for federal law enforcement officials to keep the proceeds of foreign crimes out of US financial institutions.

Mr Ashcroft estimated that on a worldwide level, money laundering activity accounted for about $1 trillion a year.

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