At the conclusion of talks this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called money laundering “the result of fentanyl sales,” and said “both the People’s Republic of China’s government and the U.S. government and citizens are hurt” by it.

“We discussed ways we could work together, and the Chinese delegation was very keen to work with us. It was an area of extreme agreement.”

Chinese money laundering gangs, with the knowledge and apparent approval of China’s party-state, have gone international and now handle much of the dirty cash moving around the world. The United States has the means to stop the gangs but has almost always refrained from employing its most effective tools.

Washington knows who the culprits are. On Aug. 28, the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) released an advisory urging financial institutions to be vigilant to the use of “Chinese money laundering networks” by Mexican drug cartels including several designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

FinCEN also issued a financial trend analysis describing the scope of those networks in the U.S.

Chinese “money brokers,” working for Latin American drug gangs such as the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, have quickly displaced rivals with, as a source told Reuters, “the most sophisticated form of money laundering that’s ever existed.”

The Chinese gangs use burner........

© The Hill