Chinese brokers launder hundreds of millions for global crime groups | FT Film

Summary

中国洗钱者与墨西哥贩毒集团合作，有效洗白芬太尼贩运收益。美国执法部门缺乏足够工具应对这一问题。中国洗钱网络复杂且运作迅速，成为主导力量。2017年，中国洗钱经纪人以极低费用接管墨西哥贩毒集团的洗钱业务，增加了贩毒集团的利润。洗钱方式隐蔽，利用地下银行系统进行镜像转账，资金跨国流动不被察觉。芬太尼危机导致美国大量死亡，洗钱资金支持国际毒品贸易，形成全球性的犯罪网络。执法部门正努力应对这一新兴威胁，强调跨部门合作和国际合作的重要性。

Takeaways

• 😀中国洗钱者与墨西哥贩毒集团合作，高效洗钱芬太尼贩卖所得。
• 😕该国的执法部门没有足够的工具来应对这种问题。
• 😲这些洗钱网络非常复杂且规模庞大，可以同时在多个方向快速转移大量资金。
• 😨中国地下银行系统利用镜像转账，在全球范围内隐秘转移资金。
• 😢芬太尼危机是美国面临的最致命的毒品威胁，特别影响50岁以下人群。
• 😩墨西哥贩毒集团通过与中国洗钱者合作，净利润提高了3%到5%。
• 😤2017年和2018年，中国洗钱者开始以极低的费用控制墨西哥贩毒集团的资金洗钱。
• 😳执法部门发现中国组织犯罪不仅提供制毒原料，还控制国际洗钱业务。
• 😔中国组织犯罪利用中国侨民和基础设施项目，洗钱规模越来越大。
• 😱美国毒品执法局发起了“沉睡巨人行动”，聚焦中国组织犯罪和墨西哥贩毒集团的合作。

Q & A

为什么中国洗钱者会与墨西哥贩毒集团合作？

中国洗钱者与墨西哥贩毒集团合作是因为他们能够高效地洗白通过芬太尼贩卖得来的收入，且中国洗钱者的费用低至1-2%，大大提高了贩毒集团的净利润。

中国的地下银行系统是如何运作的？

中国的地下银行系统通过一种叫做镜像转移的方法运作。一个人将一袋现金存入地下银行，另一端的分支机构会提取同样金额的现金。整个过程中没有实际资金转移，因此对当局来说是完全隐形的。

芬太尼危机对美国有何影响？

芬太尼危机导致大量美国人死亡，特别是50岁以下的人。美国缉毒局（DEA）报告称，芬太尼过量服用是50岁以下人群的主要死亡原因。

中国洗钱者是如何帮助墨西哥贩毒集团洗钱的？

墨西哥贩毒集团将毒品销售所得的现金交给中国洗钱者，通过微信联系，洗钱者会安排在美国的同伙接收现金，然后通过各种方式在美国国内分发美元。这些资金随后以低费用出售给需要美元的中国买家。

为什么DEA难以应对这种新的洗钱模式？

DEA难以应对这种新的洗钱模式，因为这种模式涉及高度复杂和专业的地下银行系统，资金转移过程隐蔽，且缺乏足够的工具和资源来追踪这些跨国洗钱活动。

Ray Donovan在打击洗钱和贩毒方面做了哪些工作？

Ray Donovan作为DEA的前运营主管，组建了特别行动小组，专注于监控和打击贩毒和洗钱活动。他还发起了“沉睡的巨人计划”，聚焦于中国有组织犯罪和墨西哥贩毒集团的合作。

地下银行系统的影响力为何如此强大？

地下银行系统的影响力强大，因为它们能够快速、高效地转移巨额资金，且不被当局察觉。此外，这些系统具有高度的专业化和组织化，能够在多个司法管辖区内同时操作。

为什么中国企业家要将资金转移出中国？

中国企业家将资金转移出中国是为了规避政府的打压和高压政策，作为一种保险政策，以保护其资产不受国内政策变化的影响。

反洗钱在打击贩毒中的作用是什么？

反洗钱是打击贩毒的重要组成部分，通过追踪和阻止非法资金的流动，削弱贩毒集团的经济基础，从而减少毒品交易。

中国洗钱者如何利用社交媒体进行非法活动？

中国洗钱者利用社交媒体广告，吸引那些希望获取美元的中国买家，通过地下银行系统进行资金转移，并使用电子货币机构或挑战者银行开设多个银行账户来规避金融机构的审查。

Outlines

00:00

💰 中国洗钱与墨西哥贩毒集团的合作

中国洗钱者与墨西哥贩毒集团合作，有效地清洗芬太尼贩卖的收益。执法部门缺乏足够的工具来应对这一问题。这些洗钱网络高度复杂，能够迅速建立并在多个方向同时转移大量资金。2017年和2018年，情况发生了显著变化，突然间，中国洗钱经纪人开始控制墨西哥贩毒集团的收益清洗，并收取1-2%的费用，这使得墨西哥贩毒集团的净利润增加了3-5%。这种地下银行系统通过镜像转账完成资金转移，完全避开了当局的监控。

05:03

🏙️ 雷蒙·多诺万的执法背景

雷蒙·多诺万介绍了自己在布朗克斯和波多黎各社区的成长经历，以及目睹毒品对家人的毁灭性影响。他在90年代初期开始在纽约市缉毒，特别专注于跨越美国西海岸到东海岸的拖车运送毒品。他在特别行动部门发展了一支团队，专门追捕贩毒集团的头目，如乔奎因·“矮子”·古兹曼。在调查过程中，他们发现中国有组织犯罪不仅提供了毒品生产的前体化学品，还接管了整个毒品贩卖的国际洗钱业务。

10:04

💵 洗钱网络和地下银行的运作

墨西哥贩毒集团通过中国洗钱经纪人清洗毒品收益。中国洗钱经纪人利用微信与全球各地的同伙联系，将资金转移给贩毒集团。这种系统利用了地下银行和虚拟货币，通过复杂的网络进行资金转移，完全避开了执法部门的监控。在调查中，执法人员发现了一些用于清洗毒品收益的地点，例如纽约市的一个仓库，那里每天有数百万美元的资金流动。

21:13

🛑 芬太尼对社区的影响

芬太尼对社区造成了严重影响，尤其是在美国弗吉尼亚州的劳登县。许多学生因服用掺有芬太尼的药物过量死亡。毒贩利用这种高利润的毒品快速赚钱，执法部门则努力应对日益严重的毒品问题。芬太尼的致命性和便于运输使其成为贩毒集团的首选，他们通过各种方式将其分销到各地，导致成千上万的死亡案例。

26:14

🔎 执法部门的联合行动

为应对芬太尼危机，执法部门开展了“睡眠巨人”项目，聚焦中国有组织犯罪与墨西哥贩毒集团的合作。这一行动旨在集结所有政府力量，解决这一严重的国家安全问题。在调查中，执法部门发现了大量跨国洗钱网络，涉及多个国家和地区的犯罪活动。通过整合情报和资源，他们成功抓获了一些主要洗钱者，并揭示了这一全球性网络的规模和复杂性。

31:15

📈 中国资本外逃与洗钱

中国资本市场不景气，导致大量资本外逃。许多中国企业家通过非法洗钱手段将资金转移到国外，以规避国内的资金管制。这些资金流向包括新加坡、英国等地的投资项目。地下银行系统和有组织犯罪团伙在这种资金转移中扮演重要角色，他们利用各种方式将资金转入国际金融系统，极大地挑战了全球金融监管体系。

36:15

💼 非法金融系统的复杂性

非法金融系统日益复杂和专业化，地下银行系统成为中国资本外逃的重要渠道。洗钱者利用社会媒体招募资金骡子，通过电子货币机构和挑战者银行等平台进行资金转移。他们的操作极其隐蔽和复杂，往往难以被传统金融机构察觉。这种情况对全球金融体系构成了重大威胁，执法部门需要采取更有效的措施来应对这一挑战。

Keywords

💡洗钱

洗钱是将非法获得的资金通过合法的金融系统进行伪装，使其看似合法的过程。在视频中，洗钱是中国和墨西哥犯罪团伙之间的核心活动，特别是在芬太尼贩运收益的处理上。中国的地下银行系统以及镜像转账方法被用于隐藏这些非法资金的流动。

💡芬太尼危机

芬太尼危机指的是在美国因滥用芬太尼而导致的大规模过量死亡事件。芬太尼是一种强效的合成阿片类药物，比海洛因和吗啡强得多。视频中指出，芬太尼的滥用是美国50岁以下人群的主要死亡原因，并且这种危机被中国的洗钱活动所加剧。

💡中国地下银行

中国地下银行是一个非正式的金融系统，用于在不通过官方银行渠道的情况下转移资金。视频中提到，这些地下银行帮助中国的非法资金跨国流动，通过镜像转账的方式，使得资金的转移对执法机构来说几乎是不可见的。

💡镜像转账

镜像转账是一种洗钱技术，资金在一个地点被存入，而在另一个地点被提取，但实际的资金从未跨越国界或在银行系统中流动。视频中，这种方法被用来在中国和墨西哥之间转移芬太尼贩运的收益，使得非法资金的流动难以被追踪。

💡毒品卡特尔

毒品卡特尔是指从事大规模非法毒品生产和分销的犯罪组织。视频中，墨西哥的毒品卡特尔被描绘为主要的芬太尼供应者，他们与中国的洗钱者合作，通过低费用的洗钱服务，大幅增加了他们的净利润。

💡中国金融资本外逃

中国金融资本外逃指的是中国的资金通过非法或非正式途径转移到境外，以逃避中国严格的资本控制。视频中提到，许多中国企业家和富人出于对中国政府政策的担忧，利用洗钱网络将资金转移到国外，作为一种保险措施。

💡国家安全问题

国家安全问题涉及对一个国家的安全、主权和利益的重大威胁。视频中，美国政府将芬太尼危机和中国的洗钱活动视为重大的国家安全问题，因为它们直接影响到公共健康、法律执行和国家的经济稳定。

💡非法经济

非法经济包括一切不符合国家法律和规章制度的经济活动。在视频中，非法经济活动如毒品贩运和洗钱被描述为全球性的问题，中国地下银行和墨西哥毒品卡特尔是这种经济的主要参与者。

💡跨国犯罪

跨国犯罪指的是犯罪活动跨越国界进行。视频中，芬太尼的生产和分销是一个典型的跨国犯罪案例，墨西哥的卡特尔生产芬太尼并将其运往美国，而中国的洗钱者则帮助这些收益在全球范围内洗白和分配。

💡项目沉睡的巨人

项目沉睡的巨人是DEA（美国缉毒局）发起的一项特别行动，旨在打击中国有组织犯罪和与之合作的墨西哥卡特尔。视频中，该项目被用来揭露和打击中国洗钱者在芬太尼危机中的角色，并试图通过跨部门合作来应对这一新的威胁。

Highlights

中国洗钱者与墨西哥贩毒集团合作，有效洗钱芬太尼贩运的收益。

本国执法部门没有足够的工具应对这一问题。

这些洗钱网络正迅速崛起，成为主导力量，具有高度复杂性。

这些是特许经营模式，可以快速建立，并能同时在多个方向移动大量价值。

2017年和2018年，中国的洗钱中介开始控制墨西哥贩毒集团的收益洗钱。

中国的地下银行系统，特别是在经济自由化后发展起来，专门为需要避开银行系统的企业提供服务。

镜像转账的方式使得这些交易完全对执法部门不可见。

非法资金资助了各种活动，包括中国消费者在欧洲购买奢侈品以及国际毒品交易。

芬太尼的泛滥是美国50岁以下人群死亡的主要原因，DEA警告一颗药丸即可致命。

墨西哥贩毒集团通过与中国洗钱者合作，净利润增加了3%到5%。

中国地下银行的镜像转账机制，无需实际资金跨境流动，但能实现资金转移。

洗钱者通过微信联系，协调资金的取款和转移，使得资金流动隐蔽而迅速。

中国洗钱者控制着从墨西哥贩毒集团到美国市场的资金流动，拥有高度专业化的运作方式。

执法部门通过特定的行动和项目，如“沉睡的巨人”计划，来应对这一全球性洗钱网络。

洗钱者利用各种方式，包括使用“钱骡”，将非法现金注入合法金融系统。

国际洗钱活动中，中国洗钱者与其他犯罪集团的合作日益密切，增强了资金流动的复杂性和隐蔽性。

Transcripts

Chinese money launderers have partnered with Mexican drug

cartels to efficiently launder the proceeds

of the fentanyl trafficking.

Law enforcement in this country has not got sufficient tools

to tackle it.

They're really on the rise as the dominant money laundering

networks.

These are franchise models, highly sophisticated.

They can be stood up quickly and move

a lot of value in a lot of different directions

simultaneously.

The scale and the scope of this is really quite extraordinary.

We started bringing all the elements of the government

together because it was a national security issue.

It was a matter of life and death.

In 2017 and '18 something significant happened.

We didn't know why.

We couldn't understand why.

Suddenly, Chinese money brokers began

to control the laundering of Mexican cartel proceeds.

And they started to do it for 1 to 2 per cent.

Those were charges or broker fees that were unheard of.

We believe that the Mexican cartels increased

their bottom line, their net profits, by 3 to 5 per cent

by simply partnering with Chinese money launderers.

In the 1990s, as China liberalised economically,

as Chinese business started moving around the world,

a system of Chinese underground banking,

or money exchange system, developed in places where

Chinese businesses were expanding;

catering to businesses often operating with legal commodities

in legal economies, but needing to move money they would not be

able to move through the Chinese banking system.

And what these underground banks do

is they transfer money according to something

that's called mirror transfer.

A person, let's say, on the one end of the network

will arrive with a sack full of money in cash,

deposit it at the underground bank.

And then through this mirror transfer,

another person will pick up the same amount of money

from the other branch of the same underground banking

network.

The crucial thing about this is that no money has actually

been transferred.

It's completely invisible to the authorities that

might wish to crack down on it.

This illicit money finances all kinds of things.

It finances shopping sprees by Chinese consumers who

want to buy luxury in Europe.

It also finances, we have evidence,

the international drugs trade, and is particularly germane when

we think of the big crisis of fentanyl that's currently

affecting the United States.

As we continue our coverage, the DEA reports, fentanyl overdose,

it is the leading cause of death among those under the age of 50.

And they're warning communities that one pill can kill.

The deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced.

Well, I cover law enforcement here

in New York for the Financial Times.

And in the course of meeting with a former DEA

agent in a Manhattan skyscraper, halfway through our meeting,

he said, forget what you're working on now.

I have a far bigger story that's being ignored.

The fentanyl crisis that is probably

the biggest killer of Americans under 50

is being fuelled by Chinese money laundering.

And law enforcement in this country

has not got sufficient tools to tackle it.

For decades the drug cartels operating in the US

had developed a very sophisticated system

for money laundering.

They would put the cash on trucks.

They would drive them across the border.

They would find ways of sending the money to people in the US

who needed cash and would buy products with them, etc.

But the DEA and enforcement agencies across America

had a playbook for how to tackle this.

All of that changed with the fentanyl crisis.

When I first heard about this, a few people told me,

you have to speak to this guy, Ray Donovan.

He would be one of the first to identify this problem.

Suddenly, Chinese nationals were popping up everywhere

in the surveillance of the fentanyl trade to an extent

that they hadn't been before.

And he and his team realised something was going on here.

My name is Raymond Donovan.

I am the former chief of operations for the Drug

Enforcement Administration.

So I grew up in an Irish neighbourhood up in the Bronx.

But then we moved to a neighbourhood where it was all

Puerto Rican.

I saw drugs decimate parts of my family

in the '70s, in particular heroin.

So I became an expert not only in the cartel,

but really being able to exploit comms, or communications.

In the mid '90s, cocaine was just falling from the sky.

My first year we seized, here in New York City,

7,000 kilos of cocaine.

When you're intercepting tens of thousands of kilos

you're really causing a lot of harm to the cartel.

We were focused primarily on tractor trailers

coming from the west coast to the east coast.

In 2012, I was assigned to the special ops division.

SOD is basically the hub for the world

as it relates to narcotics investigations

and criminal networks.

While at SOD I developed a team.

And we collectively pursued Chapo Guzman.

We never really focused in on Chinese organised crime.

Our focus was on the Sinaloa cartel.

Yeah, we're in Brooklyn, near to downtown Brooklyn.

It's a warehouse area.

It's an area that is known for receiving shipments of drugs

coming in from Mexico or from other states

across the United States.

We started realising that the Chinese organised crime was not

only involved with supplying all the precursor chemicals

to the Mexican cartels for production of illicit narcotics.

They were also really taking over the international money

laundering aspects of the entire drug trafficking

as we know it across the United States.

Another fentanyl bust in the Bronx,

just blocks away from the daycare

where a one-year-old boy died.

We would see an organisation, that we identified through

our investigation, that was a fentanyl distribution network

dropping off drug proceeds to a Chinese money launderer here

in New York City.

And then that launderer would then

bring money, through our investigation,

to an MSP, or a money service provider, in Flushing, Queens.

And from there we would launch a different sort of investigation

that became more about following the paper trail of how

the money is leaving through these stores

because they were fronts.

Often you'll see a business that from the outside looking in,

it looks like it's one business.

But once you walk inside there's multiple businesses within.

And that's where you'll see that they'll have a money service

provider set up to launder illicit drug proceeds on behalf

of the criminal organisations.

We had a saying, all roads lead back to Flushing.

And the reason we said that is we

identified command and control leadership.

All these things sort of centred back to Flushing, Queens.

My name is Chris Urben, I'm a managing director

with Nardello and Co, which is a global investigations firm.

Prior to Nardello, I spent 24 years with the DEA

as a special agent.

This is Mexico.

This is the United States.

And this is China.

The currencies do not cross borders, the pesos, the dollars,

the Chinese Rmb.

Think of billion dollar pots of each currency

in those countries.

Let's look at the Mexican cartels.

They produce fentanyl.

They ship a large shipment of fentanyl to New York to a drug

distribution gang in New York.

They then sell that fentanyl.

And say they have $1mn that they need to have laundered back

to the Mexican drug cartel.

They contact the cartel and say, we have $1mn that we want

to move back to you.

They contact the Chinese money broker in Mexico.

That Chinese money broker, via WeChat,

contacts a Chinese broker in New York,

saying $1mn needs to be picked up.

Mexican cartel contacts their drug distribution arm and says:

this Chinese broker is going to pick up the million dollars.

They arrange for that pick-up.

It's brought back to a stash location, where they're

collecting drug proceeds controlled by this Chinese money

broker.

Chinese money broker sees that the money is there, $1mn.

WeChat messages the Chinese money broker and says:

I have the million dollars.

At this point in time, those funds

are released to the Mexican cartel.

They've now been made whole.

Their funds have been laundered for them.

That million dollars now is sitting

in a stash house controlled by Chinese money launderers.

They then get on WeChat or a bulletin board

and advertise the sale of those US dollars

within the United States.

Once those dollars were put on WeChat,

Chinese nationals, whether they be back in mainland China

or within the United States, want to buy dollars.

In this example, he's going to buy $100,000.

This Chinese national has been introduced

by this Chinese broker, in mainland China,

by this Chinese broker.

Before he actually gives them the funds,

the transfer is made bank to bank.

As soon as that's done, he provides the cashier's cheque

with the funds.

He now has the funds.

He's done.

He's made his money.

He's invested in the US.

In the beginning of this we we're trying to understand it.

We were following these individuals.

And they were picking up millions of dollars.

They followed one of these Chinese couriers who

had picked up money back to a block

and lost him on surveillance.

Now, it was later at night.

It was dark.

It was in Flushing, Queens.

And they decided, let's get out.

Let's walk the block and determine

if we can see where he went or where he was.

As they were walking down the street,

they heard what they thought to be money counters.

So when they went closer to this building, on the first floor,

they had had the window open just a little bit.

And there were six to eight money counters being run

and over $10mn in this stash location.

That was the amount of money that they

had to bring in, count.

Showed the flow of money because they were selling that money

the next day to a Chinese buyer that wanted

to invest in the United States.

Now, you can couple that around the world.

You could say that in Africa, we noticed Chinese organised crime

where there was a Chinese diaspora.

And there was a Chinese infrastructure project

and dramatic amounts of money.

Chinese organised crime paralleled those efforts.

The same thing is happening whether it be

in Italy or throughout Europe.

When you have larger narco proceeds that

need to be laundered back to Colombia, Mexico,

or somewhere else around the globe,

Chinese money launderers are relied upon

to do that on a much greater scale

than they were in the past.

They're very sophisticated.

They're very professional.

And they can get the job done quickly.

The Ndrangheta, it was born in the province of Reggio Calabria,

and in particular in the mountains of Aspromonte.

Aspromonte is one of the most geographically challenging areas

of Calabria.

It is a constellation of about 33 villages all

around the same mountain area.

The San Luca base clans are well versed and particularly

important for the cocaine trade, arriving at the port

of Gioia Tauro still today.

But first up tonight, more students

overdosing at a local high school.

This time it's happening in Loudoun County.

All believed to be fentanyl laced pills.

I like talking to the addicts, figuring out their story,

figuring out how it was.

They start telling you about how they were prescribed medicine.

Then they went to the heroin, got addicted to the heroin.

And the heroin, the high wasn't getting...

they were taking more and more of the heroin.

And then the fentanyl came on the market.

And it was so much stronger.

And that's all they wanted.

The cartels, they see the opportunity to make money.

And it's just like the street dealers around here.

They see the opportunity to make the quick money.

And they can make a lot of money real fast.

I'm Deputy Will Sullivan with the Loudoun County Sheriff's

Office.

I'm assigned to the tactical support unit.

I also work with our drug and gang unit.

And I do traffic stops for them too.

Fentanyl, it's blown up in this area.

It's a really horrible, horrible drug, what it's done to people.

We're getting more and more of it on the street now.

You used to get just a little a little bit of it.

Now you're getting a lot of it.

It's taking over people's lives.

They're making lots of money on this stuff.

And the dealers push and push more and more.

And you're getting busts now, where

you're getting thousands of pills at a time, lots

and lots of money in cash.

We're seeing the end result of what is

an international major problem.

My name is Mike Chapman.

I'm the Sheriff here in Loudoun County, Virginia.

I've been the sheriff for just over 12 years, just got

re-elected.

Prior to that I served 23 years with the Drug Enforcement

Administration all over the globe.

This is a photo of me sitting in a field of poppies

up there by the northwest area of Pakistan

near the deer district up there, not too far, I don't believe,

from the Khyber Pass.

If you look back to 2020 or so, you had about 93,000 overdoses

nationally, overdose deaths nationally.

So you jump up a year.

And it goes up to like 103,000 in 2021.

2022, it goes up to 106,000.

And last year it's 112,000.

We're losing more people in a year to drug overdoses than we

lost soldiers in Vietnam over a 10-year period, twice as many.

So this is really significant.

And this is something that we really

have to take head on in every direction

because it's so prevalent.

And we really need to stop this.

The problem with fentanyl is that you can produce so much.

And it takes so little to overdose.

You're talking about a lot of pills

that you can get across the border.

And it doesn't take up much space.

And it's so deadly.

And it's easy to distribute.

This story is about greed.

They don't care about parents losing their kids.

They don't care about kids losing their parents.

They don't care about any of that.

All they care about is this.

And it's something that we've got to do

everything we can to stop.

The select committee will come to order.

At the outset, I want to recognise that we are privileged

to be joined today by families who have been directly impacted

by the fentanyl crisis here in the United States.

This hearing and the information that we are about to provide

is for them and for those that they have lost.

Mr Donovan, you are recognised for your opening remarks.

Good morning, Chairman Gallagher, ranking member

Krishnamoorthi, and distinguished members

of the committee.

My name is Ray Donovan.

I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity

to testify before you today on the pressing

issue of the fentanyl crisis and China's role in feeding

this emergency, striking Americans in areas

of public health, law enforcement,

and national security.

Being as deadly as fentanyl was, we said, enough's enough.

And we started bringing all the elements of the government

together to really focus our energies

and our efforts towards these groups

because it was a national security issue.

It was a matter of life and death.

Project Sleeping Giant was our intent

to put a big spotlight on Chinese organised crime

and criminal groups that work hand in hand

with Mexican cartels worldwide.

So when Ray Donovan told me about this Operation Sleeping

Giant that he had set into motion around 2016,

I started to research this operation

and could find only a single reference to it

in a budget document, in a federal budget document

anywhere, really, which seems to suggest

that the DEA wasn't taken as seriously as it might have been.

There really wasn't enough of a link-up between the various arms

of law enforcement, between the Treasury,

which is supposed to monitor cash

transactions, between the FBI, between the Department

of Justice.

These were not really as integrated

as you might have hoped in the face of a completely new threat.

I was a special agent in charge for the special ops division.

And Chris was coming in to headquarters.

And so what I did was I asked Chris

to be in charge of what we call the counter-threat team.

So as this threat was evolving, the insight was evolving,

Project Sleeping Giant was created

to gather whatever we could pull in that was judicially acquired

or through our sources.

We did that.

And we started to gather insight.

And then we were able to provide insight to the field.

How was your case in LA, a money launderer

connected to command and control in New York?

How was this seizure that happened in Denver?

How is that connected to command and control in New York?

And it's amazing when you get agents in the room

and we talk about these cases.

And we would have strategy meetings

under the umbrella of Project Sleeping Giant.

And we have great human sources that we've

recruited over decades.

They started to provide information.

We started to understand that there

was this global network that was at scale

that could move money with speed, within a day,

unheard of before.

We want to talk about the Zhishi Li investigation.

And he pled guilty here recently in Eastern District of Virginia.

And he was an amazing money launderer.

He was the first one that we investigated.

And we took down his organisation.

He had a casino in central America that he had established.

He had strong triad links back in mainland China.

He travelled there.

And he had a sophisticated network within the United States

to pick up those funds.

And Li was one of those brokers that was at a very high level.

So what it allowed us to do was gather

that information, that intelligence,

gather that evidence.

We had an opportunity through the investigation

to acquire ledgers and transactions and what

he had been participating in.

So it was what I would call a traditional takedown.

We got the whole network.

And I had the opportunity to sit-in those debriefings.

And I was floored by the scale that this was happening,

the level of discipline, the level of sophistication.

And you can imagine dozens of Zhishi Li's operating

in the United States, Mexico, Central and South America,

establishing casinos, establishing front businesses,

very difficult to do.

Another component of the challenge,

there's not very many Mandarin speakers in DEA.

There's not very many Mandarin data scientists in DEA.

The challenge of getting people with good Mandarin skills

and Chinese cultural background is

that security people are very reluctant when somebody comes in

and they do have good Chinese, but they also

have an extensive network of relationships in China.

My name is Dennis Wilder.

I spent 36 years in the Central Intelligence Agency.

I worked at the White House for George W.

Bush as his special assistant and senior director

for East Asia.

The fentanyl issue has been an enormous domestic issue

in the United States.

And China's role in the sale of precursors to drug dealers

has been a big thorn in the side of US politics.

So the Biden administration for quite a while

now has been trying to get the Chinese to restart

our co-operation, which ended in 2019, on this topic.

We have very quickly moved to a mode where the Ministry

of Public Security in China and other organisations seem to be

co-operating quite closely to begin to try and shut down

the fentanyl flow from China.

The present critical global challenges

we face from climate change, to counter narcotics,

to artificial intelligence, demand our joint efforts.

Both the United States and China were

seeking to put a floor underneath the freefall

of the relationship.

The level of tensions and hostilities

have been the greatest in decades.

I am Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow at The Brookings

Institution, where I direct Brookings work

on transnational threats such as illegal economies,

organised crime, terrorism, civil war.

The anti-money laundering element

is now part of this counter-narcotics operation.

The illicit side of the informal banking system,

of the underground banking system,

grew in tandem with the regrowth of the Chinese triads

in the 1980s, and particularly in the 1990s.

Just as China was liberalising, opening up economically,

criminal groups like the triads were growing and expanding

their reach, first in southeast Asia

then into the Pacific countries of New Zealand and Australia,

subsequently to other parts of the world.

There have been whole books written on organised crime

in China historically.

And this is not a new problem.

The Guomindang, the nationalist party,

used them during the civil war.

The communists used them during the civil war and afterwards.

Places like Hong Kong we have seen

the government using them to go after democracy protesters.

In China today there are many business people, entrepreneurs

with large amounts of money, who are scared

of the Chinese government.

Xi Jinping in recent times has been cracking down

on private entrepreneurs.

People have disappeared in the business community

without any information, not even put

into the legal system in China, simply taken into custody.

And so we see the business class in China

looking to get some of their money

out as an insurance policy.

I'm sure you've heard the stories of Singapore,

where a huge number of these business people

are setting up bank accounts, offices.

And there is a real question of how

they're getting this money out of China,

since there are strict controls on taking money out of China.

And I think the answer is, of course, they're

going through money laundering schemes and illegal activities

to do this.

We hear experts tell us that the movement

of illicit Chinese money, of capital flight from China

these days, is a virtual tidal wave.

And there are very good reasons for that.

The Chinese capital markets are in really bad shape.

Chinese stock indices have been plunging.

Chinese property values have been going down sharply.

So there's all kinds of incentives for Chinese people

to send their money abroad, either

to invest in foreign assets or simply to buy stock.

In the past we've looked at this issue

and several hundred billion US dollars worth of capital flight

has exited China and gone around the world.

At the moment it's quite possible

that the amount of Chinese money leaving China

exceeds even those very high levels.

The National Crime Agency of the UK

has actually given it a formal name.

It's called Informal Value Transfer System, IVTS.

And it really lies at the heart of the movement

of Chinese illicit money all over the world.

This is more overt now as a service.

Some of them are advertised on the internet.

Some of them are advertised on social media.

Crime as a service and laundering as a service

has become a much bigger thing.

I'm Sal Melki.

I'm the head of illicit finance in the National Economic Crime

Centre.

The National Economic Crime Centre

is part of the National Crime Agency.

An underground banker might be sat in the centre of dozens,

maybe even hundreds of transactions.

And that just shows how sophisticated

they need to be in terms of their operations.

So they need to be a professionalised outfit.

They need to be highly organised.

They need to operate almost like a bank,

keep ledgers, understand the scale of the cash pools

in various different jurisdictions,

understand the liquidity available to them.

And that's not easy.

So to do that you need infrastructure.

And you need clever people, sophisticated people.

And you need lots of people.

It's something that we're seeing as a growing threat to the UK

and across the world.

Since capital controls were imposed in China

it's become much harder for Chinese citizens

to get money outside of China, to spend that money abroad.

So, for example, if you want to get a million pounds out

of China, so you're transferring a million pounds

worth of value from one country, in this case China, to the UK.

So by exchanging that value, that pool of cash,

that money needs to exist in a separate jurisdiction.

So what underground bankers are doing

is turning to organised criminals

as a readily available source of cash and liquidity

to be able to settle those remittances.

So they are tied in with organised crime in the United

Kingdom, who generate huge amounts of cash

usually from the drugs trade.

And they're using that liquidity and that trade

to settle the remittances, in this example,

to allow that one million pounds to be transferred out of China

and into the UK.

Underground bankers will use a lot of methodologies

to get that illicit cash into their hands

and into the mainstream financial system.

Money mules are a really common tactic.

And they can often be people that

are unwitting or people that don't fully

understand the criminality that they're involved in.

What they'll do is advertise on social media and say,

would you like some money?

And all you need to do in exchange

is let us use your bank account.

What they'll also do is create more bank accounts outside

of the mainstream financial institutions

and look towards electronic money institutes or challenger

banks, where actually you can set up

bank accounts far more quicker.

And the level of onboarding for those bank accounts

are less rigorous.

So you can do it on a mobile phone app.

You can get 10, 20, 100 people to work for your organisation.

Then you can smurf that money into the legitimate financial

institutions.

And that means breaking it down into smaller chunks that

are hard to detect.

They're undermining the banking system.

And they're exploiting the banking system.

Financial institutions don't have

the benefit of the intelligence that the federal government has.

I do think about it often.

I gave it everything I had.

I left it all out in the field.

It's an uphill battle.

And it continues to be an uphill battle.

The money continues to flow.

The technology continues to advance.

The criminal groups are more and more interconnected.

They're not going to stop.