we have done -- thanks to you, and many of your colleagues here in the house, we've done a phenomenal job at shoring up many of the gaps along the southwest border. we have 20,000 border patrol agents now, most of which are now down in that area, interdicting drugs, interdicting money, et cetera. so we have done a good job there. where we're really lacking is a defense in depth, if you will. the department of defense's detection and monitoring assets they had before 9/11, after 9/11, over 60% of the assets went away, to other parts of the world, rightfully where they needed to be. but for the most part they've never come back into theater. every four-star general or commander that's commanded centcom has talked about this troubling situation, where they're tracking load after load after load of suspected cocaine, probably loads of cash, and they cannot do anything about it. think literally sit by and watch these targets pass on the

screen. the one thing, though, that i believe that this committee can do that i believe very much needs to be done is we really need to tighten the noose on the benefit ownership issue, and lower the curtain once and for all and expose these people for who they are. that is the linchpin, that is the choke point for all of the money laundering that has been discussed and probably will continue to be discussed that hezbollah is engaged in. you're right, the lcb was moving over $200 million a month in hezbollah cocaine money through that institutions and many of its affiliate institutions, banks. >> i yield back. our objective is to assist you in any way possible, as you

emerge as a major regional leader in our efforts to counter illicit finance. what else can be done? you would like to see from the united states, specifically related to an ota presence, would that be important? just kindly give us your insights and what would help you be successful. >> thank you very much for your question. i think, to begin with, i have to express my appreciation for the support that the united states is already providing to our new government in argentina. the prescribes of mr. obama less than two months ago, i think, with the early arrival of president macry, a very strong political sign of support, and the presence of jennifer soski, the now former director in argentina, a couple days before president obama's arrival was

very strong support to my job. i think that kind of support is very important not only to motivate us to continue to work, but also to show a sign to the rest of the region and the work. i also think your support is fundamental in helping us raise awareness, particularly on the important of addressing terrorist financing risks in our country and in our region. i would like to see the presence of u.s officials more often coming to argentina helping us and i hope to be able to team up in part in those evers as well. we also need technical assistance.

i think that's where ota support through the he department of the treasury ota support can be of great help. we had a first mission to conduct the diagnostic at the fiu, and we're looking forward to receiving their support, particularly for our supervisory committees. apart from being an intelligence agency, we're also a regulator for the entire financial system. our main role is to protect financial integrity. we also need technology, and unfortunately over the past ten years there's been little investment in technological resources. this affects our capacity to conduct sophisticated analysis. that's where i think the united states can help us come closer to providers and companies that can offer solutions to our current challenges. thank you very much. >> thank you.

i would like you to weigh in some more, as we went to the triborder area, it's very open, did not see the presence of any law enforcement there, a free flow of individuals, traffic. and what -- what do you see, mr. brawn? and all panel can weigh in on this. what do you see that can be done to address this area? >> what it really comes down to is if not governed space, under-governed space, and it's important to understand, congressman, that, you know, both transnational organized crime as well as terror organizations are attracted to those areas because they can thrive in those areas. because of a law of law enforcement resources and other security forces.

really, a lack of any type of meaningful judicial process whatsoever or, you know, the more raw side of power, almost a total lack of military or other security presence. so they're attracted to those areas, because, again, they can operate with impunity in those areas. what i tried to touch on any my opening remarks is one thing we can do, you know, we can help our foreign counterparts i believe develop their capacity, both criminal investigative, organized -- think of it this way, anti-organized crime

capacity and judicial capacity to attack these threats. i believe things like task forces can you brought to bear in places lie the triborder area to help, if nothing else monitor and collect intelligence that is enormously important to efforts, you know, outside of that area. >> thank you. my time has expired. >> let me thank the chairman and ranking member and thank the witnesses today. it's great to see you again, mr. federici. thank you for the great work you do, and all the panelists. i want to remark that i thought your comments at our recent trip were particularly illuminating, and i was grateful for you sharing your insight. so thank you. i won't go over what some of my colleagues already asked, but one of the things in front of the world and our hemisphere right now is two out of three

foreign terrorist organizations operating in latin america, the farc and eln, are now in the process of negotiating peace with the government. i think this is a good thing, but what's your opinion on how we're going to deal with these money-laundering issues the aftermath. this is an important question that needs to be asked. are these organizations going to be demobilized and gotten -- and their support for terrorism and their role in international money laundering, how is that going to be addressed? can you offer any insights you have? >> congressman, i would say one thing front and center that -- listen, i applaud colombia's

efforts to bring them to the peace table, and to -- and to bring peace to the country for the first time since the farc stood up in 1954. the most important point is, and the colombian government realizes this. if anyone thinks these combatants will blend back into society, are going to take jobs, you know, at the local factory or other places, the vast majority of them simply won't. they've gone the tate for the excitement and enormous amounts of money. that's absolutely what motivates them to this day. personally i don't see a great deal of change. any other ideas? enchts mr. congressman, i would like to add one point try to bring the conversation back to a broader level.

what's happening in colombia and the challenges it poses are the reflection of a broader regional problem. namely that all of these elicit activities do occur to some extent because of the corruption, complacency and complicity of sectors of public institutions and politicians in the region. there is a vested interest among these categories of public servants not to prosecute and go after these networks.

this is a challenge across the continent, across the region. one of the things i think can improve, if you cannot persuade the political classes to abide by the law international standards, financial integrity and prosecute criminals, what you need to do is institute mechanisms of enforcement outside of their jurisdictions. one example i would make, two months ago i was shown data about cash flows out of the

country. so here you have a perfect tool to go after some of these money flows without. >> thank you. doctor? >> yes, i'd like to go back to your question. i think it's a very interesting question. as part of the international community as we, we've been begun to think about that because colombia is coming up for a standard and this question is going to be raised. how is the money that the farc has been harboring in colombia and out of colombia going to be treated? there may be differences in treatment. and how compliant is an amnesty

of the type that colombia is contemplating with the international standard. i don't have the real -- the final answer to the question yet. i think it deserving some thought from the international community as a whole, but i do have my reflection on this topic, which is that the money that has been flowing from the farc and other terrorist organizations is money that has contaminated the integrity of financial systems outside of colombia as well. these flowing have been through that octave. >> my country had to deal with flows of these organization. or policy has been to treat them as terrorist fronts, and supply the necessary measures to suppress them.

we need to be thoughtful of how we treat this after the final amnesty agreements are signed. it very much will depend on the letter of those agreements on one side and on the consensus we managed to reach internationally how to treat they money flows. i do want to say regardless of that, i share and applaud colombia's effort to come to peace within their country. >> mr. chairman, i know i'm way over time, but i would like to say, i absolutely look at this as a positive thing, the peace effort, but if these terrorist groups turn on to just criminal behavior around the world, that's not necessarily a good

thing. so i'm glad all of you are thinking about it. >> mr. williams is recognized to five minutes. >> thank you, chairman, and thank you to all the witnesses for being here. mr. federici, much of our immigration debate, and i'm particularly central to that issue, because i represent texas, is on boarder security. you go on to say that those working at the financial intelligence unit were not qualified, had no understanding of money laundering, terrorist financing risk and strategy. i think that probably makes some of us in this room like myself worried, because we know our enemies will exploit our southern border if given the opportunity. one of the themes is working with a willing and equal partner when it comes to come bathing terrorist financing.

so, mr. federici, i know you talked about some of this in your testimony, but can you expand what steps argentina is taking, and how will they work with the united states to achieve their goals? >> thank you very much. this is the tragic situation that we found the country in after so many years of this interest for the public thing in argentina. as i said, i think corruption had a lot to do with this, corruption affected mparticulary the law enforcement agencies, including the border protection agencies. law enforcement agencies were severely dismantled. when we stepped in, we found them badly equipped, with very poor salaries, untrained, even

mistreated, with a very lack of trust in themselves. of course, this led to little capacity to conduct the job that the law mandates them to do. with regards to the border in particular, we found that only 17% of the border were controlled by radars, and very limited air defense system. we found that the airplanes that were supposed to protect our borders were not flying. the ships that were supposed to protect our seas and our rivers were not working, and the military forces, the armed forces were very badly equipped to conduct their preventive -- their preventive job. steps are being taken. there was an increase in salaries for all the armed forces very recent. i don't have the exact figures because this is an area that's

not until my competence, but i can provide you with the figures upon my return to buenos aires. this decision was made last week. so a recognition first of all of the importance that our armed forces have, and our border protection forces have in protecting our national security and protecting our country and a recognition and a commitment expressed in tangible actions, like an increase many the salary was the first step to do. now we need to train them again, we need to equip them with the necessary resources. we need to provide the technology they need to conduct the job, and we need to do this at the same time while thinking strategically, how to use the resources in the most efficient way. with regard to border protection in particular, we need to bring

to our table our neighboring countries our bordering countries, which is where most of our threats related with drug trafficking appeared terrorist financing are coming from. we need to sit together and start working as a team again. i think in particular with related with the triborder area problem and terrorist financing, as i said, that is an opportunity to reengage, also with the support of the united states. >> the state department released a report last year that found a significant amount of money in argentina, which was outside government supervise, an estimated 25% to 40% of informal economy. so what steps in argentinar taking to change or rein this in? >> this is also an excellent

question i think that is correct, our estimates are even greater than that. we think an amount close to the same amount of our gdp, is held outside of argentina, or basically outside of the radar of our tax authorities. this is related to many reasons, economic instability, inflation, devaluation, political and institutional instability has ledden argentines, in many cases whom have legitimately earned their wealth. the most important measure we are taking these days to overcome the situation is to launch a voluntary tax compliance program. we have drafted a big that is currently in the house of representatives in argentina for discuss, basically to provide incentives to come clean.

we believe this would reduce undeclared cash, and also will reduce the amount of informality. but i would also like to say that part of the problem has been the excessive regulatory pressure. to give you an example. in the last five years argentine issued more than five laws, more that four crease and more than 70 regulations which i -- which in a way obstructed the structuring of the financial system, in many cases prevented financial inclusion, and even in some caddies led some to be formal expelled. there was a proliferation of those channel to move the money in and out of argentina.

while most of the fund were related with argentines who have legitimately earned their income and were seeking protection, these are also channels that i have no doubt could have been used and most likely were used by criminals, particularly drug traffickers and terrorist financiers. this is a problem that needs to be addressed. we will tackle part of this problem but we also need to have more efficient regulations with a risk-based approach, don't obstruct the finance system and the economy, and focus on what's important. thank for you your testimony. i yield back. >> mr. foster is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you for your participation in this important hearing there have been legislative proposals in congress to eliminate anonymous shell corporations in the united states.

as i understand, they have been eliminated in many advanced economies. so i was wondering if mr. brown or any of you could comment on the importance of anonymous shell corporations in the u.s. and drug money laundering, terrorist financing, international corruption and other activities, and what the essentially features of some legislative reforming in this area would be to really help us fight these. >> thank you for the question, congressman. as i said earlier, the single-most important piece of hezbollah's money laundering operation or their apparatus, extremely sophisticated, and this holds true certainly for, you know, most of the transnational drug trafficking organizations that are spanning the globe today, as well as many other terrorist organizations,

is the importance of those shell -- the anonymity related to those shell corporations and those accounts. and anything that this committee and task force can do, again, to raise the veil, drop the curtain, whatever, to expose the beneficial owners of those corporations, i believe would have a significant impact on the way today's very nefarious, very sophisticated money launderers are doing business. one thing for sure, it would cause them to change their techniques, tactics and procedures. what law enforcement needs and our country needs to be better after, i believe, is real coordination with folks like you. because when those changes take

place, those changes, you know, result in opportunities for law enforcement to take action. then the important thing is to stay on top of them after that. >> are there countries you think do this right in terms of ownership? you know, just. >> if i may step in, mr. congressman, and thank you for your questions. i think there are two things that countries can do better. one is, of course, disclosure namely the obligation to make the identity of beneficial owners publicly available, and the second is transparency, to make it easy for those interested in finding out make it easy to disclose that information. the problem is beyond these form an conditions and requirements you do have to confront well-established facilities for

those investigations. and again i go back to the investigation i mentioned that is ongoing in paraguay. it involved people who had issued invoices for up to a million dollars, who were in one case a street vendor of ice cream. there were unskilled workers. one of them was actually constrained to his bed for an illness for months and hadn't been earning. they didn't even know that they themselves were declared as the official owners of the companies issuing the invoices. so here you have a situation where from a formal point of view, you knew who the owners of the businesses were, but you cannot go beyond that formality if there is an informal system of again, i thinks what is important is to fill in gap is

that we have to identify those areas where we can intervene, operating in a system that's more structured and more law abiding. again, these networks rely on the structural weaknesses of these countries and border regions, but their global networks, in the example i brought, you have false invoicing and shipments going from hong kong through miami, dubai, west africa, into the border regions, and back out into the international financial system. if we cannot improve standards of transparency in those countries we can at least intervene in those points further away in the supply chain where there is the rule of law. there are governments that are allies and friendly and willing to cooperate in order to

mitigate the consequences of -- >> in the example that you just gave where it went through miami would there typically be an anonymous u.s. shell corporation involved in that kind of operation? >> thank you for the follow-up question. actually, that is precisely the point. in the cases that i have seen, actually you can find out who the officers are in the companies. you can identify enough names, for example, in the case of miami, there is one individual who is a certified public accountant and who is incorporating companies. all of these companies that are involved somehow in this investigation. and he has been involved in the past at least twice in cases where there were convictions for fraud and violence against hezbollah operatives here in the united states. this is an individual to which hezbollah operatives go to in order to incorporate company. the information is there. the difficulty is to connect the

dots. >> thank you. >> gentleman from maine is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. appreciate it very much. thank you, gentlemen, for being here. mr. braun, if i may, hezbollah is an entrenched international terrorism organization, predominantly operating in the middle east, at least that's been the understanding of many of us who are wrestling with this whole international security issue. and now we learn from you folks and others that their tentacles are reaching into our hemisphere and operating in south america in the drug trafficking trade. i'm sure you folks are all well aware of the fact that we have a heroin epidemic in this country. and it doesn't spare any location. i represent the great state of maine, in particular northern maine and other parts of our state, and we have a real problem up there. now, we learned, mr. braun,

about 95% of the heroin entering this country goes through our southwest border. it goes through our southwestern border. do you have any evidence that hezbollah and their drug trafficking operations in south america have any kind of impact or influence on the heroin entering this country that's now reaching all the way to northern maine, it is coming through our southwest border? >> thank you, congressman. listen, i've been out of government now 7 1/2 years so i don't have access to information like i used to have in my old job. but what i can tell you is this. hezbollah has become so proficient at not only, you know, engineering the wiring diagram, if you will, for what's needed to conduct their very effective money laundering operations, but they are now providing those same services to both colombian and mexican drug trafficking cartels.

so, by doing so, if nothing else, they're certainly facilitating, you know, what's sadly happening in maine and all across our country, and i thank you for bringing that up. because one thing we've got to remember, folks, is we experienced over 47,000 drug-related overdose deaths last year. that's 129 americans dying every day of the week. and folks aren't talking about drugs these days. they have just absolutely turned their heads. they don't want to hear about it. but if we don't get this problem in check, if we don't get back to what we used to do, we're going to have an even worse situation in the decades ahead. >> thank you. doctor, we have a terrific neighbor to our north, of course, the canadians, and they're a major trading partner with our country. we have a 3,000-mile border.

in the state of maine alone, the land border with canada is 311 miles and you can be on a snowmobile in the middle of a field and step off your machine and one foot you're in canada and one foot you're in maine. do you worry at all and do we have any evidence whatsoever that as we put more and more pressure on our southwest border that we may be at risk for additional activities that are unlawful and beyond on our northern border? >> thank you for your question. again, like my colleague on the panel, i do not have access to intelligence and to classified information. i only rely on open sources. so, my ability to answer is somewhat constrained and limited by what i know and by what i know i don't know. having said that, i can tell you that the building blocks of

hezbollah's money laundering operations, terrorism operations in latin america, so the social infrastructure, the networks of support and their interconnectivity which enables them to leverage the businesses and the so-called elicit commerce for their nefarious purposes do exist also across the northern u.s. border with canada. they do exist in the united states to be fair as well, though perhaps not to the same -- to the same extent. and so while not being able to conclusively tell you that this is happening, i do see the signs of it there. the difference, i think, is the strength of the financial system, the transparency of corporate laws, the fact that you do have, you know, the rule of law functioning that you have strong institutions which are all elements lacking in the regions of south america where hezbollah is most successful. >> thank you, doctor, very much.

if i may, mr. chair, could you shed any light on your experience in your part of the world where there's been pressure put on one border, one international border, and it causes problems on another border. have you -- can you share any light on that to help us on this committee? >> yes. thank you very much, congressman. absolutely. we are actually experiencing this as we speak today. in recent years argentina has become a very important transit country for the export of illegal drugs out from our borders towards -- mainly towards europe and west africa. and, you know, i'm talking mostly about cocaine flowing south from bolivia and also from

peru. and leaving our ports towards the ocean. and what we are seeing is that in the last six months that the new government has been in office, due to all the pressure that we have been putting in controlling our borders and controlling the drug routes that we have identified, there have already been changes, slight changes for the moment, but changes in the routes that drug traffickers take. and we have been receiving signals from our neighboring countries as well that some of

these changes are starting to affect them. particularly south brazil and uruguay are saying an increase in movements. i am suspicious of unusual movements that they hadn't seen before due to the pressure that we're placing. this is something that is very subtle for the moment because we have only been in office for less than six months, but that we believe will increase significantly as we continue to put pressure against these organizations. the routes and their flows. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman, appreciate it. >> gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> doctor, there seems to be some dispute about the influence of iran in south america. some including the obama administration claim that iran's influence in the region is waning, however, there are other news reports that cite military and intelligence officials who directly contradict this narrative and claim that iran's influence is still present and particularly growing particularly between hezbollah

and the so-called cultural centers that are being ruled by the islamic revolutionary guard corps. where do you fall on this issue? >> thank you very much, sir, for your question. very important point. and i'd like to answer by making -- by addressing two themes. the first is iran and its latin america policy and the second is the connection between iran and hezbollah. let me turn to iran first. i think that the assessment that the influence or the emphasis of iran in latin america is waning is based on the differences in approach between the previous president of iran and his, you know, enthusiasm for latin america and the current president who hasn't visited the region yet and no other

officials, senior officials, of his government have put the same emphasis. however, the point about iran's latin america policy is that this is not a file that is mainly handled by the elected government and its ministries, it is a file that has always been held by the supreme leader's office through his own personal representative to latin america, mr. urbani, infamous for his role in the bombing in buenos aires in '94 when 85 people were murdered and many more grievously injured. so, that policy continues. it's expanding. it's ongoing. it's well financed, sustained, and i see no signs that there is any change in approach. it is a policy that has been ongoing for over 30 years that relies on the social network -- >> and you're saying that it's expanding? >> it is expanding, yes, sir. it is expanding because it is making a conscious, sustained, well-funded effort to actually

reach out not just to the local shia communities which are mainly syrian and lebanese, but it is actually reaching out to convert non-muslims to shia islam -- >> so you have the stream leader's surrogates there on the one hand and then in tandem with that you have hezbollah. >> correct. and what i see is that the hezbollah clerics are mainly focusing on the shia communities of arab immigrants of lebanese and syrian descent. the iranians are focusing on the outreach missionary effort, but they are combined, most of the time they are overlapping in the same mosques, in the same centers. they are interacting. there is a stream of very senior clerics coming from both iran and lebanon to visit on a constant basis. and the hezbollah

representatives together with iranian ones are constantly cooperating on this effort. and this effort to a large extent is geared toward building support, galvanizing the troops and radicalizing and indoctrinating and it's the facade for the financial activities which are managed in coordination. i want to give you one example that to me is very revealing. we have spoken a lot about the tri-border, but the tri-border is just one reality of many and just along the brazilian-paraguay frontier which is mostly lawless and severely underguarded and underpatrolled, you have several other cities that have the same characteristics of the tri-border area. namely cities that are on both sides of the frontier with significant shia, lebanese

communities involved in trade. one of the cities is call punta poral and on the paraguay border there is a very big shia community -- >> what's the population in that community? how many people would you say? >> the two cities combined have a little over 200,000 -- >> and how many in the shia community? >> a few thousand, sir. a few thousand, sir. but in that city mr. urbani has a representative. information from his facebook page show this individual was about six, eight weeks ago celebrating his marriage with urbani in person officiating. this is akin to having a very senior member of the clergy of iran, a personal representative of the supreme leader, celebrating the marriage of a

muslim convert to islam in a very remote region of south america. it tells us how important that connection is, and it shows the link in this religious-social infrastructure in a critical point placed that is considered to be one of the highest in crime in latin america currently even worse than some of the colombian cities during the height of the drug crisis. the importance that this city has come to have in the design of iranian policy and in the interaction between hezbollah and iran in latin america. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i wish i could take more time. i didn't even get to any of the other issues. the iranian connection here, though, i would just recommend that we might want to take another look at this and shine -- continue to shine that light. this is fascinating testimony that we're hearing today, so thank you. >> yeah. agreed. and we may have a second round of questioning if we have time before the joint session of congress. with that we'll recognize the gentleman from arizona for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. fedricci, having been in argentina just a couple months ago, i know members of congress and i think much of the world is enthusiastic to see a country that could be such a powerful player on the world stage sort of back as a player on the world stage, and, you know, we wish you and the new government the very best. we truly want to know how we can share information and actually

be a good partner, because i think there's a level of trust of the new administration that has not existed in, what, 17-some years so -- and that's really important. i have a whole bunch of things here. but first off, do we fixate too much on the tri-border region? >> i think -- first of all, thank you very much for your comments and for having visited our country, and we really do need the support of our partners. with the united states in particular i think we share -- we share values.

we share a common vision of the world, and i think we need to team up together to face the threats that affect us both as nations. so, i really do thank you for those words. and we are counting on your support. i have to say that from the perspective of our countries, we think we fixate too little on the tri-border area. and as i said in my testimony, i think we need to quickly and professionally assess the risks to money laundering and terrorist financing coming out of that area and start

developing a joint strategy among the countries that are affected by this problem in that part of the world. and ideally with the support of those that have information about better information, about what's going on in that part of the world. i think personally that my country has irresponsibly unattended the risks stemming out from that area, and that's why we think we need to get back into the game. we need to re-engage our neighbors in that -- in that assessment and start developing a joint strategy together. >> it's actually not where i wanted to go, but to that point, is your counterpart in brazil, are they reaching out and also working with you? >> okay. i don't want to saying? something inappropriate speaking about another country given that i'm a public official of argentina. >> you can say you're working on it. >> i will say that brazil's role in helping us assess the risks in this part of the world and in developing a strategy is fundamental. this cannot be done without their engagement. that is why we need brazil at that table and we need to start working together with them. they are currently attending, i think, priorities that may be

somewhat different, but in my view are also related to this problem. because as we have heard, much of this problem is related with the lack of institutional quality, the corruption that has allowed for these threats to grow and to develop in that part of the world. so, we need to work together. we're hopeful that with the new focus that argentina will put in to assessing risks in that area and with the support that we may receive from international partners like the united states, we will be able to bring all of our neighbors to the table and start taking -- tackling this problem seriously. >> can i pitch a sort of a theory, and i would love your comments, from all three of you, on this, and that is whether it be from the shia communities, whether it be from money laundering for drug trades or human smuggling or political

corruption, that there is almost a very complex, sort of semiformal backbone actually around the world but particularly coming out of central and south america to move assets, move money around. and today that network's client could be drug money. tomorrow it could be the cash from weapons sales. tomorrow it could be -- the day after that it could be something else. and that may be a constant misunderstanding we have of we think of it as terrorism financing or drug money financing. that money laundering network is often the same. am i being fair? >> i believe -- yeah, you're being fair. and you're very accurate. as i said earlier, transnational

organized crime groups as well as terror and insurgent groups around the world rely on the same shadow facilitators to move their agendas forward. in the private sector that i've been in now 7 1/2 years, we call that outsourcing, all right? they use many of the same money laundering organizations, they use many of the same arms traffickers, they rely heavily on many of the same human smuggling groups, you know, those that provide fictitious or counterfeit travel documents that are much needed. they also do things that are very unique like corrupting the private sector, strategically corrupting the private sector, communication industry, transportation industry and the like. >> mr. chairman, this is something i beg of you and even your staff to consider.

our committee is structured to look at terrorism financing and money laundering. but as we've heard testimony networks that are washing money for terrorism are the very networks that are political corrupt or are washing and moving money for drug trafficking, who are washing money for human trafficking. how do we bring these different law enforcement mechanisms and our international partners? because my fear is we have too many silos out there. how do you bring them together and combine the intelligence that's there and focus? because if the backbone that's being used to launder and move money is for lots of pretty evil causes, maybe we can get some focus here. and with that, mr. chairman, i'll yield back. >> gentleman yields back. the gentleman from florida mr. ross is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, ever since this

committee has continued its investigation and discovery, we've learned a great deal of tools that have been utilized for intelligence purposes, data sharing and otherwise 6 identifying money landering and terrorism finance networks. what has concerned me and continues to concern me has been the lack of enforcement. so what do we do with this information? what have we done with this information? mr. braun, i'm particularly impressed with your comments and your testimony when you state that to successfully disrupt or defeat the threat, the information collected analyzed and reported must be actioned. could you go into a little bit of detail about that? because i think that's the fulcrum to where we need to go. all for show is great, but if we don't have some element of success and actually preventing what we're setting out to do, then what good is all this intelligence and surveillance that we're doing? >> thank you, congressman. i don't want to diminish in any

way the important work that our -- >> and you won't. my only concern would be, i'm interpreting that to mean there are things we could do better. this task force needs your recommendations as to what we can do to increase enforcement. we've seen an administration that exercises prosecutorial discretion in this country on federal laws that are being broken and yet that are being just turned a blind eye to. and no matter how many laws or even if brazil does what we want them to do, if there's no enforcement, then what good is it that we do and how can we accomplish that enforcement? >> well, there has to be a greater deal of sharing. our intel community to a lesser degree our military now that they've become heavily interested in counter threat finance are collecting enormous amounts of data. but the problem is that if you're outside of a declared area of war, that's pretty tough to action other than with the use of a judicial model.

and that's why i keep going back to this is the responsibility of federal law enforcement to action this work. but they -- you know -- >> and limited jurisdiction. but would there not be an opportunity because you talk about having financial incentives in providing assistance whether it be financial or technical to foreign governments. is there not a way that we can impose incentives to our partners that would require that in order to have this assistance, in order to have this technical or financial support, there has to be enforcement? because jurisdictionally there's only so far that the long arm of the united states can do go. we have to rely on our partners. and while our partners are of course welcome to accept our assistance, if they're not using it for enforcement purposes, then what recourse do we have? >> with our counterparts abroad, i mean, one thing that could be

done legislatively is if they're not willing to share the information that we're working with them to build capacity to collect, then we turn off the tap. >> and i appreciate that. >> that's what it comes down to. >> i think that's what it comes down to. i don't want to see it come down to that because i think the source could be be in their country and even if they share the intelligence with us to where it gets to our country we can exercise our enforcement jurisdiction. i would like to see it stopped at the source. mr. federici and i, i'm very grateful for you to be there, i'm impressed with what argentina is doing. how have we been as a partner? do you see us in an opportunity to provide these incentives? because there has to be a good quid pro quo there for nation building, if you will, to defeat moneylaundering and anti-terrorism financing. your comments about enforcement. >> well, i think we're just starting to rebuild our trust i think as nations with this new government. >> yes. >> and there's been a paralysis

in the relationship over the last few years. and i assume and i am very sure this is mostly the responsibility of our previous administration that has been unwilling to cooperate. now i think we need to start building this new trust fast because the threats are there. >> they're growing exponentially almost. >> exactly. what we mostly need at the moment to be able to operate and to be able to enforce these actions is intelligence right now. we need high-quality intelligence on our hands to be able to use the tools that the law grants us to seize the assets of criminals, to interrupt the flows of potential terrorists. >> and you would do that if you had the intelligence. >> i have the absolute determination to do that. you can count on that for sure.

we have information that there have been flows of terrorist money coming out from argentina to the hands of foreign terrorist fighters that have enlisted with isil, and we need more of that type of information in order to be able to put our hands on those flows and to be able to share it internationally as well. and to take the enforcement action. >> i'm hopeful if that happens that we exercise our rules of engagement and stop that. i see my time's up and i'll yield back. thank you. >> gentleman yields back. we would like to thank the witnesses for their testimony today. we have additional questions but we also have a joint session of congress we need to get in our seats for. so then without objection, we'll give all of the members of the task force five additional days within which to submit additional written questions. they could be submitted to the chair. we'll forward those questions to the witnesses and we ask if you

could, the witnesses to respond as promptly as you may be able. without objection, this hearing is adjourned.

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i never felt the urge -- as i mentioned before, make money. what turned me on in the '60s and admire the kennedys is to make policy. that always is what drove me. >> sunday night on q & a, a two-part interview with lawyer and politician mark green, author of "bright infinite future: a generational memoir on the progressive rise" in which he talks about his life and career in public office. >> you've got to have a drive that may be undesirable in a spouse or a friend, but you got to wake up and go to sleep and think i want this so much, i will -- if you do everything, you win. said lyndon johnson. >> part one airs sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q & a."