WASHINGTON—A package of seven legislative proposals put forward by the Biden administration would seeks to enhance the capabilities of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to bring money laundering and racketeering charges related to corruption.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kevin Driscoll of the DOJ’s Criminal Division announced the proposals as part of a Dec. 12 speech, according to Compliance Week. He said the rules would “strengthen anti-corruption law enforcement authorities” to better support their roles in combating instances of cross-border corruption, Compliance Week said.
“We know that international cooperation is essential to the work we do to expose cross-border grand corruption and bring cases to recover corruption proceeds and bring corrupt actors to justice,” Driscoll was quoted as saying. “Our collective ability to hold corrupt actors responsible, taking the profit out of these crimes, and returning stolen assets depends on sincere and dedicated cooperation formally and informally at every level of law enforcement.”
The Objectives
According to the report, the proposals seek to:
- Make foreign crime a predicate for money laundering, if the same conduct is already a domestic predicate for money laundering
- Preserve proceeds of foreign kleptocracy in support of foreign investigations
- Authorize the United States to use forfeited property to remediate the harms of kleptocracy, human rights violations and abuses, war crimes, and armed aggression
- Clarify authority for seizure warrants for property located abroad in criminal cases
- Add certain criminal offenses involving corruption, human rights violations and abuses, war crimes, sanctions and export control violations, and illicit foreign election contributions as “racketeering activities” under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
- Leverage foreign partners’ ability to recover proceeds of kleptocracy
- Add enablers of corruption as a category for visa ineligibility
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