PRETORIA – As half of her assembly with South African officers, Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen introduced a dedication between the U.S. Department of the Treasury and South Africa’s National Treasury to kind a United States – South Africa Task Force on Combating the Financing of Wildlife Trafficking. The Task Force will work to fight illicit finance linked to unlawful wildlife commerce in three key areas.
First, the Task Force will prioritize the sharing of monetary pink flags and indicators associated to wildlife trafficking instances, particularly these involving the U.S. and South Africa monetary techniques. The South African Anti-Money Laundering Integrated Task Force (SAMLIT), a public personal partnership, will play a key function working in collaboration with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on this effort.
Second, the Task Force will use elevated info sharing between monetary intelligence items to higher help key regulation enforcement companies from South Africa and the United States. This will bolster regulation enforcement efforts to use monetary investigations to pursue and get better the illicit proceeds of wildlife criminals, particularly transnational legal organizations (TCOs) fueling and benefiting from corruption and the trafficking of, amongst different issues, abalone, rhino horns, pangolins, and elephant ivory.
Finally, the Task Force will convene related authorities authorities, regulators, regulation enforcement, and the personal sector to enhance controls to fight cash laundering and the illicit proceeds associated to drug trafficking and wildlife trafficking.
“To defend wildlife populations from additional poaching and disrupt the related illicit commerce, we should ‘follow the money’ in the identical means we do with different critical crimes. This consists of figuring out and seizing the proceeds generated from the unlawful wildlife commerce and impeding the cash laundering and cross-border transactions of the transnational legal organizations usually concerned in—and who profit from—corruption, stated Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen.
As President Joe Biden underlined throughout the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit in December 2022, the United States is dedicated to working with South Africa and throughout the African continent to deal with world challenges. The Task Force is a chance to harness our shared pursuits to strengthen ties and deal with this world menace.
BACKGROUND
Given the significance of the U.S. greenback and monetary system to worldwide commerce and finance, the unlawful wildlife commerce presents a novel money-laundering menace with respect to proceeds transiting the U.S. monetary system. Because of the shut hyperlink to key Administration priorities associated to corruption, local weather coverage, public well being, and combating transnational legal organizations (TCOs), wildlife trafficking and different nature crimes will proceed to be a precedence for the U.S. authorities.
Last fall, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Teo Boon Ching, who has been linked to transporting rhino horns from Africa for the previous 20 years. Also, Treasury’s 2022 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment included a particular focus part on wildlife trafficking. In 2021, FinCEN carried out personal sector outreach on environmental crimes, together with wildlife trafficking. In June, FinCEN issued the first National AML/CFT Priorities for Financial Institutions. This included a precedence to fight TCOs, and FinCEN acknowledged the particular hyperlinks between TCOs and the unlawful wildlife commerce. In December, FinCEN printed a menace evaluation of latest wildlife trafficking-related suspicious exercise experiences.
Alongside South Africa, the United States additionally labored with the Financial Action Task Force, the worldwide normal setting physique on combating cash laundering and different illicit finance, to determine indicators related to cash laundering and wildlife trafficking. The developments and typologies recognized as half of this work are key to elevating consciousness and supporting key disruptive efforts.
The new U.S. – South Africa Task Force will search to harness the experience and sources of the U.S. and South Africa in working to fight the financing of wildlife trafficking and counter the transnational legal organizations benefiting from it.
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Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen Announces U.S.-South Africa Task Force to Combat the Financing of Wildlife Trafficking
Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen Announces U.S.-South Africa Task Force to Combat the Financing of Wildlife Trafficking
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Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen Announces U.S.-South Africa Task Force to Combat the Financing of Wildlife Trafficking