Stopping Trafficking, Illicit Flows, Laundering, and Exploitation Act of 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7592) to require the Comptroller General of the United States to carry out a study on trafficking, and for other purposes.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 7592

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Stopping Trafficking, Illicit Flows, Laundering, and Exploitation Act of 2020'' or the ``STIFLE Act of 2020''. SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The Congress finds the following:

(1) Trafficking is a national-security threat and an economic drain of our resources.

(2) As the U.S. Department of the Treasury's recently released ``2020 National Strategy for Combating Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing'' concludes, ``While money laundering, terrorism financing, and WMD proliferation financing differ qualitatively and quantitatively, the illicit actors engaging in these activities can exploit the same vulnerabilities and financial channels.''.

(3) Among those are bad actors engaged in trafficking, whether they trade in drugs, arms, cultural property, wildlife, natural resources, counterfeit goods, organs, or, even, other humans.

(4) Their illegal (or ``dark'') markets use similar and sometimes related or overlapping methods and means to acquire, move, and profit from their crimes.

(5) In a March 2017, report from Global Financial Integrity, ``Transnational Crime and the Developing World'', the global business of transnational crime was valued at $1.6 trillion to $2.2 trillion annually, resulting in crime, violence, terrorism, instability, corruption, and lost tax revenues worldwide. SEC. 3. GAO STUDY.

(a) Study.--The Comptroller General of the United States shall carry out a study on--

(1) the major trafficking routes used by transnational criminal organizations, terrorists, and others, and to what extent the trafficking routes for people (including children), drugs, weapons, cash, child sexual exploitation materials, or other illicit goods are similar, related, or cooperative;

(2) commonly used methods to launder and move the proceeds of trafficking;

(3) the types of suspicious financial activity that are associated with illicit trafficking networks, and how financial institutions identify and report such activity;

(4) the nexus between the identities and finances of trafficked persons and fraud;

(5) the tools, guidance, training, partnerships, supervision, or other mechanisms that Federal agencies, including the Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Federal financial regulators, and law enforcement, provide to help financial institutions identify techniques and patterns of transactions that may involve the proceeds of trafficking;

(6) what steps financial institutions are taking to detect and prevent bad actors who are laundering the proceeds of illicit trafficking, including data analysis, policies, training procedures, rules, and guidance;

(7) what role gatekeepers, such as lawyers, notaries, accountants, investment advisors, logistics agents, and trust and company service providers, play in facilitating trafficking networks and the laundering of illicit proceeds; and

(8) the role that emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, digital identity technologies, blockchain technologies, virtual assets, and related exchanges and online marketplaces, and other innovative technologies, can play in both assisting with and potentially enabling the laundering of proceeds from trafficking.

(b) Consultation.--In carrying out the study required under subsection (a), the Comptroller General shall solicit feedback and perspectives to the extent practicable from survivor and victim advocacy organizations, law enforcement, research organizations, private-sector organizations (including financial institutions and data and technology companies), and any other organization or entity that the Comptroller General determines appropriate.

(c) Report.--The Comptroller General shall issue one or more reports to the Congress containing the results of the study required under subsection (a). The first report shall be issued not later than the end of the 15-month period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act. The reports shall contain--

(1) all findings and determinations made in carrying out the study required under subsection (a); and

(2) recommendations for any legislative or regulatory changes necessary to combat trafficking or the laundering of proceeds from trafficking.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 7592, the Stopping Trafficking, Illicit Flows, Laundering, and Exploitation Act of 2020, the STIFLE Act, introduced by Representatives McAdams and Gonzalez.

This bill would commission the Government Accountability Office to study and analyze the converging attributes of transnational trafficking networks. These shared or overlapping characteristics and methods, such as supply chains, facilitators, or gatekeepers, and the movement of finances make it possible for traffickers in a host of different areas to move their illicit proceeds and evade detection.

By better understanding the ``business models'' that underlie these networks, we can better combat their terrible acts in a host of different areas, ranging from selling illicit drugs to trafficking in modern slavery. We have focused on illicit trafficking--human trafficking, drug trafficking, et cetera--in the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I commend the members of the Financial Services Committee for focusing on this issue, since the linchpin, the Achilles heel, of many of these trafficking networks is their financial movements, their access to the financial system, and this may be the way to accomplish an awful lot to stop this illicit trafficking.

The STIFLE Act is part of the House Financial Services Committee's bipartisan Counter-Trafficking Initiative, introduced in March to address this pervasive issue that is a threat to all of our constituents and communities.

Human trafficking, drug trafficking, wildlife trafficking, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are just a few examples of the illicit markets that generate an estimated $2.2 trillion, annually. The resulting proceeds and instability benefit bad actors, while threatening the environment, civil society, individuals on our streets, our economy, our national security, and, of course, the human rights of so many thousands of people who are trafficked around the world.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. McAdams and Mr. Gonzalez for introducing this bill to help identify concrete opportunities for action to combat these criminals and terrorists who engage in this illicit trade by focusing on our financial system. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 7592.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, understanding the business of trafficking-- whether it be illicit drugs, whether it be human trafficking, whether it be terrorism, et cetera--is fundamental to stopping transnational crime, and the harm that it causes and the victims it creates in communities worldwide.

The House Financial Services Committee's bipartisan Counter- Trafficking Initiative is a comprehensive approach to this challenge and is a very important adjunct to the Foreign Affairs Committee's work to stop illicit trafficking, particularly human trafficking.

We need to examine these illicit networks as a whole, whether they engage in narcotics, timber, endangered species, rare earths, or, tragically, human trafficking of men and women--modern slavery.

So I look forward to all of the committees of this Congress focusing on these criminal traffickers. H.R. 7592, the STIFLE Act, is a significant piece of that effort, tapping into the knowledge from survivor and victim advocacy organizations, law enforcement, regulators, research organizations, and the private sector to be able to focus on the financial system and make sure that we keep these traffickers at bay and out of the financial system as much as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation which is an important step to protecting our citizens, our economy, and our national security.

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