Trade Based Money Laundering in North America

Trade Based Financial Crime and Money Laundering continues to be likely the most important but least well understood predicate type and money laundering method. The GCFFC MENA have published work in this area already and GCFFC Africa (SSA) is currently considering it for that region. The GCFFC Americas chapter have highlighted the need to focus on this topic because it is intrinsically linked to serious financial and organised crime including drug trafficking including fentanyl, and professional money laundering, particularly Chinese professional money laundering. North America (Canada, USA and Mexico) faces substantial exposure both to trade & to ML due to its large & interconnected economies, cross-border trade & onward trade, & large financial flows. FATF & domestic regulatory agencies such as the US FinCEN have flagged TBML as a critical issue in their reports and advisories, as well as in US AML risk assessments, which call out Chinese Professional Money Laundering. The new US administration is placing fentanyl trafficking as a key issue & looking for ways to tackle this aggressively, which has increased this as an issue in both Canada & Mexico, & beyond, in particular in countries related to the supply chain & the ML activity, which includes China. The Working Group will be led by Brandi Reynolds.