Money Laundering Prompts U.S. Drive For a Tougher Law
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The Clinton administration plans to ask Congress for sweeping new powers to combat money laundering including the authority to ban financial transactions between United States banks or brokerage houses and off-shore financial centers, administration officials said today. The request is the centerpiece of administration efforts to tighten money-laundering laws after the Bank of New York was found to have served as a conduit for about $7 billion in Russian money, some of which investigators believe was derived from illegal activities. The administration has also been searching for ways to make it harder for drug traffickers to funnel their profits through American banks. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers plans to announce proposed legislation in a speech to bankers on Thursday, officials said. The legislation would give his department a broad range of powers to investigate and in serious cases forbid transactions between American financial institutions and individual foreign banks or entire foreign countries. More : query.nytimes.com |