Trade-Based Money Laundering Concerns Laid Out in White Paper by Sen. Cassidy

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., says Congress needs to counter trade-based money laundering, perhaps by directing federal agencies to track shipping manifests and financial information in real time. One-way trade-based money laundering happens when one party sells another party goods at an artificially low rate, and the receiving party is able to sell the goods for the true value, Cassidy's white paper said. Currently, he said, "There is no requirement that the information contained in the manifest match the information in the invoice."

Trade-based money laundering "generally appears in jurisdictions with a high risk of traditional money laundering and where authorities have recently improved their traditional anti-money laundering efforts. As a result, criminals are forced to turn to trade to launder money, rather than traditional money laundering schemes," the paper said. To counter it, the U.S. must "develop an appropriate methodology and system to integrate necessary trade data and intelligence data," as well as enhance cooperation with trading partners to identify the practice. Congress should direct federal agencies to prioritize tackling this problem, Cassidy said. He said one solution for tracking shipping manifests and invoices instantly would be a public distributed ledger, also known as blockchain.