That o-crime uses marijuana businesses to circumvent Chinese capital flight laws---there’s a direct correlation.

According to Oklahoma law enforcement, 2,000 of the 3,000 licensed marijuana farms flagged for suspicious activity over the last year had a Chinese connection providing funding, labor, or both.

This illegal industry has grown up around China’s capital flight laws, which cap the amount of currency Chinese nationals are allowed to transfer abroad each year. This is the same driver behind Chinese money laundering organizations.

There’s been a lot of debate about whether state-sanctioned marijuana businesses should be able to access the U.S. banking system. The proposals on the table assume that state and local regulations will hold back organized crime. The Kingfisher County murders show us that assumption is just plain wrong.

If this legislation passes, Chinese money laundering organizations will have an additional avenue for cleaning dirty money.

They can simply hand it off to Chinese criminal organizations fraudulently running state-sanctioned marijuana farms for introduction into the U.S. banking system.

According to the Treasury Department, Chinese money laundering organizations are “becoming one of the most significant money laundering threat actors facing the U.S. financial system.”

Now is the time to make it harder for criminals to move dirty money and buy assets in the United States, not easier.