ICAIE’s John Cassara Congressional Testimomy: Converging Criminal Enterprises: Chinese Money Laundering Networks and Cartel Financing in the U.S. Financial System (June 2026)
Written Testimony of
John A. Cassara
Presented to the
Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations
U.S. House Financial Services Committee
June 9, 2026
Thank you, Chairman Meuser, Ranking Member Green, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, for the opportunity to testify today on “Converging Criminal Enterprises: Chinese Money Laundering Networks and Cartel Financing in the U.S. Financial System.”
Before addressing Chinese money laundering networks, I would like to briefly discuss our efforts to combat money laundering in general through the U.S. financial system.
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Out of the trillions of dollars that are laundered every year, how much of the proceeds of crime are actually seized and forfeited? According to the UNODC, the answer is less than one percent. It bears repeating; we successfully seize and forfeit less than one percent of the proceeds of crime that are laundered globally every year. The U.S. has approximately the same failure rate.
My most recent book is China – Specified Unlawful Activities: CCP/Inc., Transnational
Crime and Money Laundering (Amazon / Kindle Direct Publishing 2023).
I wrote the book at the end of my long anti-money laundering career because I am simply staggered by facts and observations that demonstrate China’s criminal hegemony and how it launders illicit proceeds.
Specified Unlawful Activities
In my book, I examine perhaps the 12 most significant sectors of transnational crime. In
11 of the 12 categories, CCP/Inc. is the world’s leading criminal actor. The 12 categories of
crime are:
- Counterfeit goods
- Intellectual property theft and trade secrets
- Human trafficking, smuggling and forced labor
- Narcotics trafficking
- Wildlife trafficking
- Illegal logging
- Illegal fishing
- Illicit tobacco
- Trade fraud
- Arms trafficking and WMD proliferation
- Organ harvesting
- Corruption
Each of the above categories of crime are also “specified unlawful activities” (SUAs) or predicate offenses to charge money laundering. I acknowledge that using SUAs and the estimates of illicit funds generated is not an ideal way of assessing money laundering.
Measuring the scale of illicit funds derived from criminal or illegal activity is challenging. But there is a strong consensus regarding China’s involvement.
Putting things in context, let’s use $4 trillion as a rough estimate of the annual magnitude of international money laundering. Using recognized estimatesvi put forward by the Washington D.C.-based non-profit Global Financial Integrity (GFI) and other sources, a solid argument can be made that by examining China’s leading role in the above listed transnational SUAs, China is responsible for introducing and laundering approximately $2 trillion dollars of illicit proceeds into the world’s economy every year.
In other words, China is responsible for approximately one-half of the money laundered throughout the world every year as measured by SUAs.
The number is staggering. It bears repeating. As measured by the largest categories of SUAs for transnational crime, CCP Inc. and its associated actors are responsible for about half of the money laundered internationally each year.
No other country even comes close. . . .
CCP Inc.’s criminal activities are increasingly exposed. I believe CCP Inc. is very vulnerable to a systematic and coordinated law enforcement approach.
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Find below John Cassara’s full Congressional Testimoney below including an array of recommendations to more honestly confront China on its global criminal activities and related money laundering schemes.
