How Chinese networks clean dirty money on a vast scale
American Intelligence Journal, Virginia Kent of the State Department and Robert Gay of the National Intelligence University in Maryland wrote of a “bloodless coup" by Chinese money-handling organisations, noting how, in recent years, they have largely displaced home-grown ones in Mexico that were previously used for this purpose. The authors (expressing their personal views) called these Chinese operators “a new and more challenging money-laundering foe". The American government has been sounding the alarm.
In its “National Money Laundering Risk Assessment" of 2022, America’s Treasury Department highlighted the involvement of Chinese illicit finance, saying that drug traffickers were making increasing use of it. The latest such report, published in February, said that Chinese money-laundering organisations had since become “more prevalent" and were now “one of the key actors laundering money professionally in the United States and around the globe". Other authorities have been chiming in, too.
In 2019 Europol, the European Union’s police agency, said money-laundering by Asian criminal groups, particularly Chinese ones, presented a “growing threat to Europe". It called the Chinese gangs “extremely flexible", saying they were handling “substantial proceeds" from a variety of criminal activity on the continent. In January the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported on a “revolution" under way in South-East Asia’s “underground banking architecture", involving everything from casinos to cryptocurrency.
The details it provided suggested that Chinese gangs were at the forefront. China’s anxiety is evident, too. It worries about the conduit provided by underground banks for evading the country’s strict foreign-exchange
. Read more on livemint.com
