Political Quotes

“I thank the chairwoman for yielding, and I thank my friend from New York, Chairwoman Maloney, for her leadership on this issue. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 2513, which would help to end the abuse of anonymous shell companies. These entities have a well- documented history of being used to hide money in a wide variety of crimes, including sanctions evasion, terrorist financing, human trafficking, drug trafficking, illegal arms dealing, tax evasion, and corruption. Anonymous shell corporations are also being subverted by criminals in ever-evolving schemes involving emerging digital technologies. One of the many hats that I wear is being a co-chair of the Blockchain Caucus. Just in the past week, I have had disquieting updates from officials from the FBI and FinCEN about trends in the abuse of cryptocurrencies for nefarious purposes. What was clear from these briefings is that the use of anonymous shell companies has greatly inhibited the ability of law enforcement to go after criminals who use cryptocurrency to engage in illicit financing. The use of anonymous shell companies also makes it extremely difficult to uncover abusive trading practices in unregulated crypto exchanges. In short, criminals and law enforcement officers are engaged in a very sophisticated cat-and-mouse game in which law enforcement is always playing catch-up.…”