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

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7592, the STIFLE Act of 2020.

Mr. Speaker, in March of 2020, the Financial Services Committee launched its bipartisan Counter-Trafficking Initiative to explore and expose the breadth of transnational trafficking networks and their illicit financial systems.

As we learned during our additional counter-trafficking hearing, transnational criminal organizations rarely limit their trafficking to one sector. Often, these criminals will acquire and traffic anything that will bring them a profit. Needless to say, these criminals have been successful in their efforts.

Global Financial Integrity, an NGO that studies illicit financial flows, estimates that the global business of transnational crime is valued between $1.6 trillion to $2.2 trillion annually. To be frank, Mr. Speaker, we have a lot of work to do.

Following our counter-trafficking hearing this Congress, Mr. McAdams and Mr. Gonzalez worked diligently and across party lines to craft a thoughtful piece of legislation to help to answer some of the outstanding questions trafficking experts brought before the committee in March.

H.R. 7592 instructs the Comptroller General to carry out a detailed study on trafficking issues. This would range from the major routes trafficking networks use, how these criminals launder and move the proceeds of their crimes, suspicious activity that law enforcement can focus on when investigating these crimes, and the steps financial institutions are taking to detect and prevent bad actors who are laundering the proceeds of trafficking.

H.R. 7592 is exactly the type of bill we as policymakers need, to learn how these illicit activities are being carried out and what we must do to make it as hard as possible for these criminals to succeed.

I would like to thank both Congressman McAdams as well as Congressman Gonzalez for taking the Counter-Trafficking Initiative seriously and coming away from our initial hearing with an understanding that there is more work that needs to be done to deal with illicit trafficking.

I look forward to working with both of them as we continue in our efforts to end trafficking once and for all.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. TIMMONS. Mr. Speaker, I simply urge my colleagues to support H.R. 7592, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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