The U.S. Department of the Treasury issued national risk assessments (NRAs) outlining the most significant illicit finance threats, vulnerabilities, and risks facing the United States.
Specifically, the NRAs are focused on Money Laundering (NMLRA), Terrorist Financing (NTFRA), and Proliferation Financing (NPFRA). The assessments found that the nation is vulnerable to all three forms of illicit finance due, among other factors, to the size of the U.S. financial system and the centrality of the U.S. dollar in global trade.
“The National Risk Assessments underscore the U.S. government’s commitment to protecting our economy and financial system from exploitation by a variety of criminal actors and national security threats.” Brian Nelson, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said. “By better understanding the current risk environment, we can more effectively guard the integrity of the U.S. financial system.”
Regarding money laundering, the NRA found that criminals continue to use a wide range of money laundering techniques to move and conceal illicit proceeds and promote criminal activity depending on availability and convenience. The most prevalent crimes include fraud, drug trafficking, cybercrime, human trafficking and smuggling, and corruption.
With respect to terrorist financing, the most common form of financial support from U.S.-based individuals continues to be the transfer of small sums (several hundred to tens of thousands of dollars) to facilitators outside of the United States.
On proliferation financing, it found that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, followed by Iran, continues to pose the most significant proliferation finance threats.
The NRAs are an important resource that the public and private sectors can use to understand the current illicit finance environment and inform their risk mitigation strategies. The Treasury’s Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes led the assessment process. These NRAs are the third iteration of the NMLRA and NTFRA since 2015 and the second for NPFRA since 2018.
In the coming weeks, Treasury will release the 2022 National Strategy for Combatting Terrorist and Other Illicit Finance, a plan directly informed by the analysis contained in the risk assessments. In it, Treasury will share recommendations for addressing these issues.