Overview

The U.S. Capital Chapter is starting 2024 by presenting three interrelated yet independent webinars focused on the impact and consequences of geopolitics on terrorism, transnational crime and AFC compliance.

Webinar 2 focuses on transnational crime emanating from and with a nexus to China, including the rise of Chinese money laundering organizations (CMLOs) operating throughout the United States.

State actors driven by geopolitical ambitions have fostered a threat environment that serves as an incubator for terrorist groups and transnational criminal organizations.  Most notably, China has emerged as a State actor that poses the greatest duel threat to western nations.  China, as a nation, poses significant national security and economic threats to western countries.  Between espionage, intellectual property theft, cyber threats and criminal facilitation, China has become the most formidable state actor that the western intelligence community is most concerned about.  According to the Department of State’s 2022 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report on Money Laundering, it is estimated that $154 billion in criminal proceeds move through China annually.

This session will focus on the emerging threat posed by CMLOs operating in the United States.  CMLOs represent one of the most worrisome new threats in combating transnational organized crime. Virtually unheard less than a decade ago, CMLOs have become key cogs in the multi-billion-dollar criminal empires run by Mexican cartels and other transnational criminal organizations.

The threats posed to national and economic security are alarmingly immense.  Much like the webinar in January focused on geopolitics and terrorism, learning objectives and takeaways include:

• Identifying the latest money laundering techniques and typologies used by CMLOs, including red flag indicators of potential criminal activity
• Promoting situational awareness of the increasingly challenging threat environment
• Financial investigative ramifications for law enforcement and the financial services industry
• The importance of public private partnerships to deal with threat identification and the critical disruption of funding flows