Trade-based money laundering is fueling global kleptocracies, terrorism and WMD proliferation

In recent decades the convergence of transnational criminal structures and illicit economies have grown to create a clear and present danger to U.S national security interests by siphoning trillions of dollars from legal economies. These funds fuel growing corruption, instability and violence while destabilizing markets in the Americas, and around the world. Criminal actors and threat networks connected through global super fixers exploit advances in technology, transportation and other critical infrastructure for illicit enrichment. In these dangerous times, converging illicit vectors erode our collective governance, prosperity, and security.

Illicit trade, trafficking, and smuggling of counterfeit goods, narcotics, humans, natural resources, WMD, and other contraband impact the security of all societies. Kleptocrats, criminal organizations, terrorist groups, and their enablers exploit networked hubs of illicit trade centered on free trade zones, ports, and other logistical channels of transportation, communications, and trade. This allows the criminal groups profit from an array of illicit activities and corrupt institutions, drain resources for economic development, and compromise the integrity of supply chains. No country is immune from these insidious gaps in the globalized world.

These illicit threat actors often disguise and launder the proceeds of their illegal activities by exploiting anonymous shell companies in jurisdictions designed to be opaque, along with financial havens and multiple forms of trade-based money laundering. These actions take advantage of the seams in the global financial system, and empower criminalized state that partner with transnational criminal organizations and rival state power. Today, trade-based money laundering (TBML) is the biggest methodology to move dirty money across borders, representing about half the money laundered every year globally.