In response to President Biden’s 2023 proposed budget, the FACT Coalition welcomed substantial increases in funding for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI).
The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition is calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to address the undisclosed presence of possible illicit financial flows in private investment markets. Without further action from the SEC, these flows may enrich and embolden potential adversaries, such as Putin’s regime, and eventually destabilize U.S. and global financial markets. Meanwhile, the failure to identify these flows undermines current sanctions against Russian oligarchs, and may jeopardize future tools that the U.S. might wield against aggressive governments.
Reforms advocated for by FACT, including those pertaining to beneficial ownership of anonymous shell entities, removing opacity from the U.S. real estate, private investment, and other luxury goods markets, and promoting greater tax transparency can bring the economic weight of new sanctions to bear. The U.S. must work expediently with its allies to permanently close financial gateways for Russia’s political elite to hide and grow their illicit wealth.
The tools that Congress and the White House commit to Ukraine’s fight for independence and democracy must not be undermined by failings in our own institutions.
In light of new sanctions against Russia, the FACT Coalition urged Congress to approve $118.2 million in emergency and discretionary funding this week for the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
FACT Government Affairs Director Erica Hanichak spoke before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control on ways legislators can deny drug traffickers and the corrupt officials they work with access to the U.S. financial system.
