Global Reach of Mexican Drug Cartels and Risks to U.S. National Security

Well, good afternoon, everyone. This uh hearing of the US Senate caucus on international narcotics control will come to order. And uh I'm just going to warn all of you that uh we've got a lot of names and foreign languages and things like that, but I'm sure our trusty court reporter will get it all down. I'll do my best to pronounce them correctly, but I'm wanted to warn you ahead of time. Um In February twenty twenty four, three Mexican nationals were arrested after police raided a meth lab connected with Cartel de Jalisco Nuevo Generacion or otherwise known as CJNG. In July, twenty twenty four, law enforcement arrested two Mexican nationals after raiding a multimillion dollar methamphetamine drug manufacturing lab on a farm. And last September, counterterrorism officers shut down a meth lab and arrested two men linked to the Sinaloa cartel. Mexican cartel drug bu- lab bus occurs so frequently that ordinarily there is nothing really surprising about them. But these raids didn't occur in the United States, nor did they occur in Mexico. These clandestine labs were actually spread over three separate continents. The first lab is located in the state of Punjab in India. The second was set up in South Africa, and the third was discovered near the uh near a city in northern Poland. Today, the Sinaloa cartel and CNG have a global footprint. Not only do they partner with local criminal organizations in Africa, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, but they are selling, sending cocineros or cooks to produce meth and process cocaine literally around the globe. This caucus's first two hearings in the one hundred and nineteenth Congress focused on the illicit activities of nefarious nature uh from outside the Western hemisphere in our own backyard, namely Hezbollah, uh, Chinese-organized criminal groups. But today's hearing looks outward to expose the activities of Mexican drug cartels largely beyond the Western hemisphere and the web of criminal connections that they have spun around the world. President Trump has made countering the cartels in Mexico a major priority of his second administration. Under his leadership, the government has designated these and other Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. The Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on individuals and institutions linked to the cartels. President Trump has worked to secure the tradi- extradition of numerous cartel operatives to face criminal charges here in the United States. And Mexico, under some pressure from the administration, has stepped up its own enforcement efforts, including deploying approximately ten thousand National Guard troops to the U. S. Mexico border, and through an operation which eliminated CNG leader Nemesio Mencho Osiguera. They're indicators that these counter-narcotics efforts are helping reduce drug smuggling across our border. Nationwide fentanyl seizures by the DEA have decreased from a high of seventy seven million pills and twelve thousand pounds of fentanyl powder, in twenty twenty three to forty seven million pills and ten thousand pounds of fentanyl powder in twenty twenty five. As we all know, that's enough to kill every person in America many times over anyway, but thankfully the numbers seem to be moving in a more positive direction. CBP's seizures at the border have decreased from twenty six thousand seven hundred pounds of fentanyl in twenty twenty three to eleven thousand, five hundred pounds of fentanyl in twenty twenty five. So basically cut it less than half, maybe uh by two thirds. And the drug overdoses in the United States, including fentanyl poisonings. have fallen from a peak of around one hundred and eleven thousand in twenty twenty three to about sixty eight or sixty nine thousand deaths in the twelve months ending in January twenty twenty six again uh a terrible tragedy to be sure but still moving in a more positive direction. These are hopeful signs, but of course we cannot celebrate prematurely. According to the DEA, fentanyl trafficking rates are still too high. I think we can tell that by the numbers. And we're seeing increases in trafficking of other substances. But there is some reason for hope. I've said for a long time now, and borrowed this from others, um, that the cartels are commodity agnostic. In other words, they're in it for the money. During the Biden administration, they unfortunately opened the borders to illegal immigration into the country. And of course, that made the cartels a whole lot of money, trafficking in human beings and in drugs. And in the wake of the Trump administration's crackdown on drug trafficking, we can expect the cartels to further adapt. Not only are they commodity agnostic, but they also don't care who they sell to as long as they can make a buck. The European cocaine market is highly lucrative, and the cartels can fetch approximately double the price for cocaine in Europe compared to sales here in the United States. So it comes as no surprise, should come as no surprise, that the cartels are exploiting the European market. Nor is it surprising that the cartels have expanded trafficking to Australia and New Zealand two of the most lucrative drug markets in the world. according to the DEA. These are businesses, albeit illegal ones, and the DEA sums up their global business strategy succinctly in a recent report. The global expansion of Mexican cartels allows traffickers to maximize reliance on a single drug market or revenue stream while maximizing profits. So the question is for us today, what does that mean for the United States? I would understand the temptation to dismiss this as Europe's problem, or India's problem, or Africa's problem, or Australia's problem. But where do those revenues from the drug sales ultimately flow? Well, they come right back to this continent, south of our border, to the country of Mexico. where they will only reinforce the cartels that are we have been working hard in cooperation with our Mexican allies to eradicate. And the dangers go far beyond financial enrichment of these criminal organizations. There are reports that a Mexican cartel operative has joined foreign fighter units in Ukraine to acquire first-person first-person-view drone capabilities, capabilities they can employ against law enforcement on our southern border. Furthermore, the cartels have strengthened ties with criminal groups all across the globe, which will only give them more opportunities to launder funds and make it harder to combat them. All of that said, the consequences for other countries and regions in the world are still stark. Sinaloa and C. J. N. G., drug cooks have exported their techniques that double and can double the output of meth of a methamphetamine lab. In Ecuador, homicide rates sp spiked after the cartels enlisted Los Choneros and Los Lobos, a couple of local gangs to distribute g- drugs for them. Cartels are not merely a U. S. problem or a Mexican problem, in other words. They are a global problem. The purpose of today's hearing is to investigate their worldwide activities. We will explore how the U. S. and other countries have been working uh to address this threat, and will identify opportunities to improve on those efforts. We have three excellent witnesses here with us today to help us think through these issues, former DEA agents Chris Urben and Michael Brown, and Vanda Feldbaub-Brown of the Brookings Institution. who has extensively documented what she terms the, quote, foreign policies, close quote, of the Sinaloa cartel and CJ NG. Without objection, I'd like to submit for the record a letter from Professor Joanna, um I'm gonna s- like struggle her name. L- Glukoszwa Balek of the University of Warsaw in Poland, detailing the risks posed by Mexican cartel activities in Europe. So I look forward to a productive hearing, and I now turn the floor over to my co-chair, Senator Whitehouse, for any opening remarks he may have.

Thank you, Chairman Cornyn. I have appreciated your leadership. of this caucus and enjoy working with you to continue its long bipartisan collaborative tradition. We frequently discuss the activities of Mexican cartels and their destructive influence in the United States, Mexico, and across Latin America. I often say that these modern drug cartels operate more like Fortune five hundred conglomerates than street gangs. Mexican drug cartels are a perfect example. Once upon a time, middlemen who muled Colombian cocaine across the US-Mexico border. Now, global business empires that generate billions of dollars in ill-gotten wealth. Today we'll shed a little light on that expansion beyond just the United States, Mexico and Latin America. Mexican cartels are now present in European, African and Asian streets. establishing markets and supply chains, addicting and killing young people with their product, corrupting politics and government, and reaping untold wealth. According to the DEA's twenty twenty-five threat assessment, the two most ruthless cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion now operate in over forty countries worldwide. They offer local gangs and organized criminal groups drugs, Money and weapons. They engage in and facilitate corruption on an enormous scale. They prop up corrupt leaders, infiltrate law enforcement agencies, and undermine institutions. Unwinning governments and American allies alike become less stable, reliable, and safe for their own citizens and for Americans who travel or do business there. These cartels have grown in influence, wealth, and footprint because we have failed to crack down on their financial empires. For nearly fifty years we focused on drug distribution networks. Because the product is contraband, the cases are easy once the drugs are found. And everyone gets to take a well-earned photo with piles of drugs and weapons and cash taken off the streets. I have done that myself. But we ignore the business side at our peril. An estimated seventy thousand Americans died of drug overdoses in twenty twenty five, including two hundred and nineteen of my fellow Rhode Islanders. If we want to be serious about fighting drug traffickers behind American deaths, we must strike at their financial networks. Globally, less than one percent of illicit financial flows are confiscated each year. At one of our hearings last Congress, a retired DEA agent told us fewer resources are dedicated to money-laundering investigations today than twenty years ago. We're going in the wrong direction. We can and must turn that around. I worked with Senator Grassley in the first Trump administration to pass the bipartisan Corporate Transparency Act to identify who's behind anonymous corporations used in criminal schemes. But Treasury Secretary Besant suspended enforcement of the law for all entities formed in the United States. In other words, ninety-nine percent of the entities covered by the law. willfully blinding law enforcement investigating our country's most dangerous threats. Treasury must reverse course and fully implement the CTA as Congress envisioned. Drug traffickers, kleptocrats, and paramilitary groups rely on opaque free trade zones and transparency gaps in trade data to move contraband profit from their ill-gotten gains and finance violence. The Clean FTZ Act, I co-lead with Senator Cassidy, would enhance oversight of foreign free trade zones, including those in West Africa and Southeast Asia that are critical links in global drug trafficking networks. Likewise, our Manifest Modernization Act would shine a light on opaque import records to help law enforcement take down bad actors. For too long the US has allowed cartels, terrorists, rogue states, Chinese money laundering organizations, and foreign oligarchs to use phony US shell corporations in their illicit schemes. These anonymous companies may exist only on paper, but they enable deadly threats to Americans' lives and security and to the stability of countries around the world. Treasury, by the way, should also close money laundering vulnerabilities in the investment and residential real estate sectors by implementing the rules that were finalized last year. The individuals servicing this corrupt and covert trade should be held accountable for their role,

Mm-hmm.

empowering criminals who are killing Americans every day. A dark international economy now supports the cartels, but also kleptocrats, human traffickers, terror groups, and all manners of evil. We need to disable that structure. Treasury, DOJ, FinCEN, and other federal agencies on the front lines fighting against financial crime and corruption need more resources. It's as simple as that. We should work in a bipartisan way to make sure they have those resources and that those resources are not diverted to other priorities. With that, I yield back to the Chairman.

Let me just say uh Senator Whitehouse, the uh legislation that you and Senator Grassley passed that Treasury is not enforcing is uh very concerning to me. And if there's some way for us to uh make that uh in some way compulsory rather than optional. Uh, I'd love to work with you on that, other than that.

I would very much look forward to that and I thank you for the kind offer.

Maybe you can explain to me how we can actually accomplish that, but uh I'm happy to work with you on it.

Gladly.

At this time let me give a little bit more background of our witnesses because they all have very distinguished resumes. In their own right, Chris Urben has spent more than twenty years at the DEA, and has led sensitive global undercover operations targeting major transnational criminal organizations. Mister Urben served in domestic and international assignments, including tours in Brussels, Luxembourg and Northern Europe, collaborating extensively with international law enforcement agencies, and overseeing USDA interests across Northern Europe and the Baltic region. He later served in the DEA's Special Operations Division, and as Assistant Special Agent in charge of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and the Far and the Far East, where he led strategic efforts to address emerging international threats. Michael Brown is Global Director for Counter-Narcotics Technology at Regaco Analytical Devices and the founder of Hoplin Consortium. He served for more than thirty-two years as a special agent with the DEA, holding domestic and international assignments across the United States, South Africa, excuse me, South Asia, Central Asia, No- Southeast Asia and Latin America. Mister Brown conducted extensive counter-narcotics in international law enforcement operations, including service with operations Snowcap in Central and South America, leadership roles in DEA offices in Pakistan, India, Min- Myanmar and Tajikistan, and coordination of regional operations across the Middle East, Asia and Afghanistan. He served as acting and supervisory county country aide-adagee in multiple overseas postings and worked closely with foreign law enforcement military and intelligence partners. He's authored numerous articles on counter-drug strategy and law enforcement practices, and is a frequent commenter on emerging narcotics threats, including the activities of Mexican cartels and global illicit chemical networks. Doctor Vanda Felba Brown is a senior fellow at the Strobe Talbot Center for Security, Strategy and Technology in the uh foreign policy program at Brookings Institution. She is the Director of the Initiative in on Non-state Armed Actors and the Co-Director of the Africa Security Initiative and the Brookings Series, The Opioid Crisis in America, Domestic and International Dimensions. Doctor Felbaugh-Brown has conducted extensive field work across regions including Afghanistan South Asia and Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa, and she served as a senior advisor to the congressionally mandated Afghanistan Peace Process Study Group. Doctor Phil Bob Brown has authored several books and numerous policy reports on topics like organized crime, conflict and drug policy. Mister Urben, why don't we start with you and if we'd I'd ask the witnesses to limit your opening comments to uh five minutes so we can have plenty of time for questions. And of course your written testimony will be made part of the record without objection. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Uh, good afternoon. Chairman Cornyn and co-chair Whitehouse and distinguished members of this caucus, thank you for the opportunity to address you today on the global reach of the Mexican cartels and their threat to the national security of the United States. I saw firsthand the damage done by the cartels and their, with their international smuggling of narcotics, including fentanyl during my twenty-five year career as an agent and executive with the DEA. I started off on the front lines targeting kingpins and command control of of these networks of transnational organized crime who were trafficking drugs into the country and laundering funds through the US financial institutions. I also spent time abroad at US embassies in Brussels and Copenhagen, working with our international partners to increase collaboration against transnational organized crime. In two thousand and eighteen, I was assigned to DEA's Special Operations Division, SOD, where I led a global team that was focused on a new and emerging and evolving threat. Chinese money launderers and CMLOs as they're described, and other elements of Chinese organized crime globally who had essentially become partners with the Mexican cartels. That was two thousand eighteen. CMLOs launder the dominant share of Mexican cartel revenues, and Chinese suppliers provide the chemical precursors for the production of fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Mm-hmm.

Since their designation by the US government as foreign terrorist organizations, FTOs, the cartel's operations have been materially impacted. Key successes against the cartel since designation, there are four of them that I want to mention. Over one hundred of the top echelon Mexican cartel targets have been sent to the United States and some appear to be cooperating. In July of twenty five, the US Treasury utilized for the first time the Fend Act against three Mexican financial institutions. In February of this year, as mentioned earlier, the Mexican cartel leader, El Mencho, was killed in a Mexican military operation.

El Mencho, no problem.

In April of this year, the Southern District of New York charged ten current and former Mexican government officials. This indictment clearly highlights the level of corruption within Mexico and has had significant impact, I believe. The Mexican cartels are being forced to evolve based on the dramatically increased threat from the US government and the negative impact on their revenue streams. Recently, General Anderson of AFRICOM stated that within the last twenty-four months, twelve drug laboratories intercepted in Africa, of those twelve, eleven had members of the Mexican cartel among the operators at that lab, an unbelievable, uh, you know, number really. General Anderson pointed out that this was an indicator of the growing presence of the Mexican cartels in Africa. In Poland, Mexican cartels controlled methamphetamine labs have also been identified and taken down by Polish narcotics units on several occasions. During my work in Brussels and Copenhagen, I collaborated extensively with European counterparts and saw the level of corruption, organized crime, violence and control increased dramatically in countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain. This corruption and control has metastasized because of cocaine trafficking into ports in those countries. It poses a clear threat threat to the national security of those countries. The negative aspect in Europe that I just described is coupled with the increase in power by cartels FTOs in the Western hemisphere to include the Mexican cartels.

Mm-hmm.

By targeting key convergence points alongside European and African counterparts, we can dismantle the operations of the Mexican cartels. By targeting Mexican cartel operations outside the Western hemisphere in jurisdictions like Europe, Asia and Africa, we can negate a new and lucrative revenue scheme that the Mexican cartels are gonna focus on. The established money laundering partnership between the Mexican cartels and Chinese money launderers continues to evolve as crypto has taken on a much more substantial role in the laundering of funds. The US government should be collaborating with all potential partners to attack the money laundering component of the Mexican cartels. The laundering of drug profits is a clear asymmetric weakness of the cartels and can be exploited with greater international cooperation and resources. Thank you to the caucus for this important issue of highlighting the global presence of the Mexican cartels. I look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Urben. Uh Their second vote is on, but what I'd like to do is let's finish uh the next two opening statements. We'll take a brief recess and come back uh for questions. So, Mister Brown?

Chairman Cornyn, Co-Chair, White House, distinguished members of the caucus, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Today I wanna focus specifically on the alarming rise of Mexican drug cartels, which I see as an urgent and growing threat, specifically regarding the now-designated foreign terrorist organizations, the Sinaloa and the Jalisco new generation cartel, also referred to as the C. J. and G. I also want to explain how their partnership with U. S. based drug trafficking organizations, or DTOs, along with the rapid proliferation of what I call the cottage industry, independent trafficker, represent the rapid evolution of the American drug trafficking paradigm. The cottage industry trafficker is composed of ordinary people cashing in on a new digital drug market. Thousands of semi-independent trafficking cells operate below the radar with no single leader or clear hierarchy. Take down one cell and another quickly self-replicates. The result is a decentralized criminal ecosystem. The Sinaloa and C. J. and G. cartels have become deeply entrenched transnational criminal organizations, posing a serious strategic threat to the United States. Over the past decade, they have built close working partnerships with major U. S. based DTOs and prison gangs, including the Crips, the Bloods, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Latin Kings, and the Mexican Mafia. These alliances have transformed once regional criminal groups into primary distribution networks for cartel-produced fentanyl, reaching every city, every state, and every neighborhood. The entire system relies on two critical capabilities, cartels' steady access to precursor chemicals and their ability to smuggle fentanyl into the United States often hidden in vehicles and within legitimate commercial cargo. As long as the supply chain remains in place, the US fentanyl market will remain saturated. The cartel-USDTO partnership now runs on a business model that accepts mass murder as part of its daily distribution cycle resulting in the deaths of eighty to one hundred thousand Americans every year as just the cost of doing business. The cartel crisis threatens to outpace our law enforcement agencies and perhaps even our sense of morality. This just isn't a drug problem anymore. It's a critical threat to public health, national security, and foreign policy. The US administration has designated the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and treats fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. So what is the next logical step to be taken? when trying to mitigate the expansion of US DTOs. Cartel FTOs and US DTOs are working together in a coordinated effort to flood the homeland with fentanyl, demonstrating a total disregard for the thousands of American lives lost as a result. Their alliance is a clear, calculated partnership that's causing massive collective harm. This is a coordinated attack on American communities, which could be perceived as a hyperform of narco-terrorism, weaponizing addiction, deceit, as an asymmetric tactic that moves beyond traditional profit-driven criminal activity. Let's be clear, there are no shades of gray. If we don't address the rapid expansion of the Mexican cartels through the evolution, Of U S criminal networks, we risk the normalization of mass murder as an acceptable and worse yet, predictable outcome. Thank you.

Doctor Phil Bob Brown, please proceed.

Chairman Cornyn, co-chair White House, um thank you for this opportunity to testify. I have been studying Mexican cartels in Mexico and outside of Mexico since two thousand five in my role as a senior fellow at Brookings and also otherwise. The Brookings institution is a US non-profit organization devoted to high quality independent research and policy solution. My testimony represents solely my personal views and does not reflect the views of Brookings its callers employees officers and or trustees. As we have heard, over the past decade, the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion have significantly expanded their operations outside of Mexico and outside of United States. They flood Europe with cocaine, originating in Latin America and flowing through West Africa. They are trying to develop new market for c cocaine in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Very worry-somely, they began promoting and trafficking methamphetamine production outside of the United States. They have set up math labs in Europe and in Africa, as you highlighted, partnering up with local criminal actors and teaching them how to produce highly potent and highly lethal Mexican version of methamphetamine. In Australia, the Mexican cartels have recently surpassed the long established Chinese criminal groups as dominant suppliers of meth. Beyond the high mortality and morbidity associated with Mexican meth, there is also the risk that methamphetamine use will become a vector for expanded fentanyl use a highly lethal possibility. The cartels also smuggle meth through the Middle East and through the United States into Canada and then on to Asia. They launder money in all of these regions, such as working through uh Chinese money laundering networks. It is in Latin America where the cartel's presence is most extensively established. These days it runs the panoply of issues from the facilitation of coca cultivation uh to trafficking through the continent, to um uh pill presses and precursor smugglings. The cartels also operate the Chinese and Indian criminal groups in the delivery of those precursors. Along the expanded trafficking routes, we frequently see significantly increased use of the drugs such as in Africa and in Pacific island nation, as the cartels pay their local partners in drugs rather than cash. But beyond drugs, the cartels are already expanding their operations into other commodities, not just in Mexico, but also outside of Mexico, into human smuggling and trafficking, into illegal gold mining, IUU fishing, and even wildlife trafficking, even in places like Africa, where the wildlife trafficking space is highly congested and established, um uh and and populated by many other established groups. In various parts of Latin America, such as in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Chile, the cartels' presence has significantly augmented criminal violence and made it far more difficult for law enforcement agencies to deal with. Similar bad trends are underway, for example, in places such as Australia. The arrival of the cartels increases their firepower and other capacities, Uh, the the the arrival of the cartels increases the firepower and other capacities of local criminal groups and teaches them how to diversify beyond drugs. The cartel's presence also frequently leads to increased corruption. In sum, the expansion of Mexican cartels beyond North America poses multifaceted threats. It undermines US law enforcement efforts by creating resilient and redundant systems of drug production and trafficking money laundering and income flows. US actions in any one place become less effective. The expansion also beacons US partners. Beyond drug use and increased criminal violence, the threat includes the loss of biodiversity, economic sustainability and food security when the cartels promote wildlife trafficking. or exacerbate IUU fishing. Wildlife trafficking can spread zoonotic diseases or other diseases affecting livestock as we see in Texas with the screw warm threat. Mexican cartels' activities could undermine the security of US supply chains, including in critical mineral and supply chains of partners. And the risks also include risks to democracy, when criminal violence and corruption gives rise to authoritarianism, or creates opportunity for hostile powers such as Russia. In short, there is an even more important need for expanded global cooperation that the United States needs to lead. Its elements should include helping governments develop the intelligence uh uh and capacity against the cartels, dismantling meth labs of Mexican cartels and other synthetic flows, Uh and but also countering their operations beyond drugs, such as by dismantling money laundering networks associated with them. All these efforts needs to take place within a strong effort to reduce corruption, patronage systems, and establish a political independent legal systems, investigative journalistic work, and scrupulously adhere to human rights and civil liberties, and also holding law enforcement accountable. Thank you.

I can resume our hearing. Thank you. How might uh mister, actually, mister Ervin, mister Brown, both of you worked for a long time in the DEA and uh one thing I've learned is that nothing much happens around the world without American leadership, and I appreciate the good important work DEA has has uh done and continues to do, but Talk to us a little bit about the cooperation uh you get from other countries on this on this challenge. Um I just don't have much of a uh framework of of understanding exactly uh are you getting support, is it uh how would you characterize it, and uh, Mister Urben why don't you start.

So in terms of global support, I think we need to highlight for the rest of the world that the Mexican cartels have now been designated as foreign terrorist organizations. So the threshold of evidence is actually very low. The the the, for example, the met-

That that designation actually changes the legal threshold?

Absolutely. So, for example, when when you when you spoke about sort of the methamphetamine labs in South Africa that were taken down, that were controlled by the Mexican cartels, that methamphetamine in theory never touched the United States. However, since the cartels have now been designated, that that conduct is material support essentially of the Mexican cartels. It's benefiting the Mexican cartels. So that low threshold, which has now just come into play in the last really twelve to eighteen months, but we'll say last twelve months, we can be utilizing that those authorities in a much more robust manner. In terms of our cooperation with with counterparts of either, you know, my my pa- my co-panelist Mike Brown has worked with or myself, we have excellent relationships around the globe that we've developed over decades, whether it's in the Baltic States, Northern Europe, Brussels, Africa, Asia, wherever. Wherever the cartels exist, we should be prioritizing with our counterparts and explaining that the threshold of evidence is very low and that they're a priority for us right now.

Mister Brown?

Yes, sir. Um, I spent roughly ten years in Pakistan, uh five years in India, three years in Myanmar, and the host country cooperation is is very good, but the biggest issue is we do not have compatible legal systems. So if I wanna do something in the US, an extradition or certain type of investigation in India or Pakistan, their laws prohibit that. There's no unified legal system that helps us fight global trafficking. So the traffickers know if they go to certain countries, they can get past DEA and get past US laws because those countries won't look at the problem in the same manner. And I think, you know, when we look at global narcotics trafficking, we have to compare that to the the unilateral cooperation we have with with terrorism, for example. A lot of countries, we we have a symbiotic relationship with many countries concerning the investigation of Al-Qaeda or ISIS, or terrorist leads to the intelligence community. We don't have that same connectivity when it comes to the Sinaloa and CJ and G cartels as they metastasize across the globe. Soon as they get to another country, cooperation then becomes questionable.

Doctor Phil Bob Brown, you talked about the uh diversification. of the business of the cartels is they don't necessarily just uh invest in drug distrib- production distribution. You mentioned things like gold mining, wildlife, trafficking. Um, it seems like they have an almost an endless capacity to evolve into some some some illegal activity that that uh they continue to make money from. And um, Describe please what challen what challenges that presents to law enforcement, or the efforts of organizations like the DEA and others to actually get after that, this problem.

Well, thank you, um, Senator Cornyn. It presents enormous uh challenges to law enforcement in multiple ways. One obviously is, even if a country such as the United States could shut down uh the supply chain of drugs from a particular locale. It's uh will not bankrupt the criminal entity, the because they are so diversified into other commodities. In Mexico, they um not simply operate across a wide range of illegal uh economies, they are directly taking over legal commodities. and legal economies as well. Outside of Mexico, they have not had the same capacity to do it, but their exemplar, their diversification into other commodities is an example for other criminal groups to emulate. And that's the second threat. So not only do they have these redundant systems of uh trafficking, of production, and of uh money flows and money laundering, They are also teaching other criminal groups to diversify in the same way, whether they teach that purposefully or simply the groups observe how much they have gained power political influence and economic benefit out of it. So it's the second threat, that uh local groups become strengthened as they learn from the Mexican cartels, and our partner countries, other governments with whom's VC cooperation become weaker.

Several of you have mentioned money laundering and um Could you explain in um with the advent of cryptocurrencies and other ways to basically hide the ball and anonymous transactions, how has that affected our ability to detect and uh dismantle uh these global operations starting with you Mister Urben?

So the the Chinese money launders in in in or about two thousand eighteen changed the game because they created globally a mirror transaction system where those funds don't cross borders so it became very difficult for financial institutions to track uh you know illicit activity, red flags, things like that. In conjunction with the Chinese money launders creating this system globally and becoming the primary money launders for the Mexican cartels, crypto up until about twenty, twenty two, twenty twenty three was still used on a limited basis as a final asset that a drug trafficker would hold that crypto wallet. Starting in about twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three, crypto became very much involved in that mere transaction between the United States and Mexico for the Mexican cartels. It was a service offered by other money laundering brokers with the Chinese to the Mexicans, and they took advantage of it because it just added another layer of of protection or anonymity. So crypto, again, up until about twenty twenty two, was us- give or take ten, twenty percent of transactions, it's now used in easily over fifty percent, probably more like sixty, seventy percent of the transactions between the United States and Mexico, as a component of that money laundering mirror transaction.

Senator Whitehouse.

Thanks very much, uh, Chairman. Uh, Doctor Felby-Brown, I noticed in your testimony that you made mention of IUU fishing. Um, that's an area that I pursue, for those of you who don't, IUU stands for illegal, unreported, uh, unregulated. Um, I use a simpler term, I call it pirate fishing. And it is primarily accomplished by either mysteriously owned um pirate run effectively slave ships that operate out on the ocean in the open seas beyond national borders and the Chinese fishing fleet, which operates in a very similar way, often through fake ownership structures, false flags, and so forth. And um I'm think I'm slowly convincing people that this pirate fishing enterprise is about a lot more than fishing, that um particularly the Chinese fishing fleet has a lot to do with Chinese intelligence gathering and Chinese uh military influence. Um I think I'm slowly convincing the State Department that there's a huge opportunity here for the United States of America, because so many coastal countries are so irritated and bedeviled by pirate fishing, particularly the abuses of the Chinese fishing fleet, which cheats with impunity in EEZs and is only happy to go in and scoop out a country's uh fishing stock that their local economy depends on. So there's a whole lot going on there, and I was interested in your connection of that to the Mexican cartels. Could you elaborate on that for me?

Thank you very much for your leadership in the IUU phishing uh space and at the White House. It is absolutely vital, and this much more expanded um set of threats that you articulated is absolutely what's going on certainly with um state sponsored um IUU phishing such as by China, but also by countries um uh such as Russia that often devastate um the exclusive economic zones of countries. in Africa and that leads to poverty and conflict exacerbation. So the Mexican cartels intersect with this in several ways. Um in Mexico they are taking over fisheries, illegal fisheries as well as legal fisheries. But they are also partnering up with um vessels of an official fis fishing fleets that are nonetheless fishing illegally in places such as Costa Rica and Central uh America. They use those ships not just to transport drugs, but to buy um uh fish that's been illegally harvested, bring it into Mexico and sell it in Mexico. They often force hotels, establishments to buy the fish that they either illegally bought themselves or they bought from fishermen, but the fishermen in Mexico or also um outside of Mexico.

Gangster style, I'll make you a deal you can't refuse. Nice little hotel you got here.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Um, the What do you One of the things that I think would be helpful in this space would be to have there be the equivalent of a kind of an international traffic ticket any time a vessel flips off its transponder. Because it seems to me that much of the illicit behavior engaged in by the shadow fleet of tankers the shadow fleet of pirate fishers they accomplish by flipping off their transponders and then going dark doing whatever is that they need to do and then coming back on or if they're more complicated, they spoof the satellite so that the satellite is being told where the vessel is, but the vessel isn't where it's being told, the vessel's going in a very different direction. Then you get these miraculous moments when it has to re-sink.

Mm.

And a multi-ton vessel supposedly has traveled, you know, four hundred miles in twenty minutes, miraculous high-speed vessel.

Mm-hmm.

There was also a very interesting graphic that the, I wanna say the New York Times put together that showed how the Chinese fishing fleet on a certain date was spread out all across the Pacific, and then evidently on a signal, they all moved to create a single line of fishing vessels all up and down one line of uh, longitude, I guess it would be. It was north to south. And s- they actually moved together as if commanded in a military operation. When you consider the conflict over space and control in the Pacific, that looks like uh an act of uh, if not war preparation, for war. What do you think about about that? The idea of if you shut off your transponder, something happens, and uh of the militarization of the Chinese fishing fleet.

Le let me start with the second question. You are absolutely right. I too noted when that happened, and I consider it a piece of evidence that denials by the Chinese government that the IUU fishing fleet is disconnected from uh any kind of larger direction, uh does not seem very likely. It did seem absolutely like a behaviour of a potential uh militia, which is not to say that every single activity of every single Chinese fishing uh ship is uh directed uh but it certainly seems to have very much the possibility to utilise the fishing fleet as a militia such as for conflict in the South China Sea. The issue of the AIS uh transporters is indeed becoming more complicated. Uh it's not just going dark, more and more we see uh the systems being spoofed, and that makes it particularly hard to counter. The larger issue even is however that even when it is identified that the transporter makes no sense that multiple signals for the same ships are appearing across different zones or all of a sudden the location is very far apart, or where the ship goes dark, there is not necessarily any kind of capacity to act. Um many governments lack maritime assets to counter fishing even within their exclusive economic zones, let alone uh in blue water. So I think it's really important to enhance uh the ship rider agreements and cooperative agreements that US Coast Guard has been uh developing, um during um uh the Biden administration. uh with governments, if they don't have the capacity to do inspections, such as against uh IUU fishing, but more broadly against other contraband or the possibility that hostile fleets, um or Russian fishing fleets uh carry intelligence equipment to inspect them. So enhancing those cooperative agreements between US Coast Guard and countries around the world uh would be very important. I would also add here one other uh element if I might.

Okay.

Going back to the Mexican cartels, the Biden administration uh for the first time in twenty twenty four, I believe, um issued treasury indictments against Mexican cartels, in this case the Gulf cartel, and their IUU fishing in the Caribbean. And this is something we should be seeing more. The treasury department during the Biden administration has very appropriately been indicting Mexican entities for oil smuggling, for all kinds of other activities, and I would love to see more of those indictments in the natural resource domains.

Great. Well, my I'm uh way past my time, so I'll just conclude by thanking you and asking you to work with my team on what we can do to develop a response for the transponder violations. They're not violations, but they should be. Um, and uh I believe that Deputy Secretary of State Chris Lando has really become a believer in this space so I think we have some voices in the Department of State to work with. Thank you, Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, Mr. Brown, earlier this week the Associated Press published a damning article outlining how federal authorities in New Mexico quote "allow drug shipments to go unseized as part of a broader effort to gather intelligence and build cases against major drug traffickers. My question, sir, is um built off what a DEA whistleblower said, which is those unseized shipments can't be accounted for, as many as one point eight million pills. Yes or no, during your time as a DEA agent, was it standard operating procedure to allow millions of fentanyl pills to go unseized?

Well, when I was uh on the job working um street investigations, there there was no fentanyl. It was simply cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. And at times, depending on the scale of the investigation, um, narcotics coming across the border were followed. We tried to follow it to its destination and at that time, we would make the arrest and make the seizure. So I I know the the case you're referring to, but it would be hard for me to um comment on it cuz I don't know the details of the investigation.

Mr. Urben, uh any Similar question to you. Is this normal?

So anytime a federal agent is conducting an investigation and has control of the pills, right, or the or the narcotic, they should be seized. Investigations are difficult. They're they're they're revolving. Uh uh again, that's that was just an initial article that I read and skimmed. Uh but if you can control the pills, you should seize them.

I appreciate that. Uh, Mister Brown, what other tactics could federal agents have used in running an investigation like this, rather than allowing narcotics just to flow through the streets at this level? Are are there other tools that agents have or that Congress should be empowering agents to to to fully take advantage of?

Well, uh referencing my my experience in in following what we call drug shipments, we would use old school trackers. I think the technology we have today between trackers and drones is more than sufficient to to track these shipments without actually giving away your surveillance operations so I would I would encourage the use and the research of more um technical means of monitoring these shipments and tracking them to their ultimate ultimate location so they are are not lost.

I appreciate that, Mr. Brown. Now this is an area, Mister Chairman, that look the the announcement from um uh Attorney General Bondi was that they had the largest drug bust in America in in the history. My concern is how many pills stayed on the streets and how many people died during this and uh is there is there a better way? Should there be a better way? And this is an area where I hope that, you know, whatever the setting is, that we can learn more. about what's happening in those particular areas. Um, mister Urban, in your testimony, um, you highlighted and you were asked a question earlier as well around crypto. Uh, crypto has taken as much, uh, more substantial role in laundering of funds, laundering of drug profits, et cetera, et cetera. Why is cryptocurrency such an attractive mechanism to facilitate little finance and how could Congress stop um uh the flow of funds? And my my question specifically there is Are there any known loopholes, known vulnerabilities that Congress should include in upcoming legislation to eliminate loopholes that allow terrorists and cartels to to make a bunch of money, and get rich off of these illicit activities?

So a as as the cartels evolved in terms of using crypto, right, the c- the the the crypto companies themselves are evolving in terms of their compliance programs. They have enhanced compliance, but I think their compliance programs should be similar to to banking institutions and the equivalent or to some degree even greater, because of the anonymity with crypto. The cartels essentially discovered crypto as a mechanism that they really liked to use for whatever reason after twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three. In terms of law enforcement, they're learning uh, the investigative components of, of investigating crypto, so I think additional funding specifically for crypto investigations would be helpful they've gotten better at it and they're becoming good at it. But I think as much as it's being utilized right now, additional funding from, from Congress would be useful for federal law enforcement to have on crypto investigations.

I ap- just thought I'm clear what you, you, you, you responded there. you shared that at the very least what Congress should do is require the same as traditional finance, if not more. Is that fair to say, not less?

Absolutely.

I I appreciate that very much. And Chairman, I certainly hope that as we talk about, you know, DeFi is is is a word that or couple of words that everyone's using around town. It's illicit finance. It's there there's there there's uh briefings right now that the banking committee's put together that are in a skiff that are classified. about um known loopholes that are being used and I certainly hope that we can find agreement to close known loopholes to prevent people that are doing bad things in America from from doing even more of them so very much appreciate that today and look forward to following up thank you both.

Mister Brown uh you have thirty-two years of service with the DEA and um Obviously you've developed expertise on how the Mexican cartels exploit um various means of getting their product into the country to the consumer. Uh, can you talk a little bit about legal trade flows? Um, for the benefit of the caucus, could you lay out how the cartels take advantage of vulnerabilities in the international trade system?

Well, the car cartels have three critical capabilities in my opinion that allow them to thrive. One is their their access to precursor chemicals, two, their ability to smuggle bulk narcotics globally through commercial cargo or private vehicles, and three, as we were talking about the the money laundering operations. But in all the countries I've worked in Central and South America, Southeast Asia, Europe, the primary means of smuggling narcotics without question is through maritime trafficking. Coming across the border in the US, it's commercial cargo and vehicles. The cartels know that governments, the United States government, Europe, Asia, they do not have the resources to search one hundred percent all the cargo coming in. That is the Achilles heel of every country in the world. As as volume in commercial shipping increases, that's cover for the cartels. Front companies, fake manifests, corruption in the ports, all enable the cartels to exploit that weakness. Um, for example, San Ysidro, um, port of entry, on an average day, seventy thousand vehicles come across that border, thirty thousand parcels. The cartels know customs CBP can only search maybe one to two percent because of the sheer volume and of course traffic has to move, trade cannot be impeded. So they are using our trade or global trade as a as a cover. to smuggle multiple tons of narcotics globally. Until we can really address that critical capability, it's gonna be very hard to degrade the capability of the cartels to globally smuggle multiple tons of narcotics.

I c- I don't know what the current number is, but I think it's somewhere around twenty thousand trucks a day come across the port of Laredo. Uh, I think it's the largest inland port in the country. And um, obviously there i are X ray and other uh technical devices to be able to ascertain whether contraband is in any of those vehicles Do you happen to know what percentage of the vehicles that cross, for example, in across our southern border are actually um X rayed or use other technical means to determine whether there's contraband? Is it a small sample or something approaching a hundred percent?

Well, I think the biggest challenge for CBP is which vehicles do we search? What are the indicators that say we should search this truck or this vehicle over another? And those indicators are very hard to come by. Uh, CBP has the latest technology, but again, it's about the numbers, not the technology. For instance, airline travel, pre-nine eleven, we could get on a plane, we could take luggage, there was no issue. Post nine eleven, nobody gets on a plane unless there's an inspection. Luggage, it's a one hundred percent inspection, and if you have to stand in line, they tell you get to the airport early. So until we really look at how are we going to mitigate the ability of the cartels to use that critical vulnerability within our trade system and our inspection system, we will continue to be flooded with with narcotics, especially fentanyl.

Doctor Phil Bob Brown, you in February published a article where you wrote, Mexican cartels have been learning sophisticated use of advanced drones from watching Ukraine's battlefield. Can you speak to the risks of uh of the cartels' pose if they bring these sort of sophisticated technology into their uh efforts to import drugs or perhaps uh exact violence on uh law enforcement or others?

So even before the report. Even before the reports um showed up that the Mexican cartels were presumably sending operatives to the Ukrainian battlefield, they were using drones. They are using drones for several purposes. One is to smuggle drugs into prison, so often small amount of contraband. They have weaponized drones and are using it to attack uh law enforcement officials in Mexico. But they are also using drones, particularly the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, to attack populations. We see primitive explosives known in Mexico as potato bombs uh loaded on drones with the purpose of uh mining entire fields in places like Michoacan and driving hundreds of thousands of people out of their location so they can control the land particularly land where they do not have um, connections to the populations, or they find desirable because there is access to water, for example, for production of methamphetamine. So the their presence um in Ukraine and uh just their observations of what is happening globally, allows them to develop um more sophisticated mechanisms, such as having drones on fiber-optic tethers. that that uh makes jamming far harder. This could facilitate their flying drones across the US-Mexico border, which they are doing already to smuggle drugs. And because synthetic opioids are so much less bulky, so much less heavy than cocaine or heroin, this method becomes more feasible. It's not as efficient uh it's not as efficient as moving drugs through legal ports of entry in cars or c uh or container um trucks. uh but they becomes more feasible. So there are immense risk with surveillance, with intimidation uh of law enforcement uh officials of, government officials of general populations, attacks, violence, as well as uh enhanced smuggling uh of drugs.

Senator Whitehouse.

Thanks. Um I'd like to particularly ask the DEA witnesses to respond to my observations in my opening comments about the uh, sort of financial apparatus that supports the cartels. My theory, my experience in all of this was that when this began, they were running drugs over the border into the US. They had to get paid. They had to deal with the cash. They had to figure out how to bring it back. And then figure out where they could deposit it. But the cash and finance function was um a secondary adjunct to the drug sales. Obviously you need to get the money back, but it was just part of that. And then it became apparent that there was enough money to be made in coping with the money side of the transaction, that that began to grow, and that once you were good at hiding bad guys' crooked money, you could now market yourself to crooked gangster thugs running countries in Africa, to human trafficking and international criminal organizations, to terror groups, to anybody who had money that they needed to hide and transfer around illicitly. And at that point, the financial apparatus kind of popped loose and became its own domain that now has its own structure and its own, it's sort of like a d- its own separate dark uh economy. And it serves all of these various illicit enterprises. And it seems to me that we were paying too little attention to the money side, back when the money side was just the drawback of cash from the sales and it was nothing more than that. Now that it's metastasized into the being this sort of financial creature that supports so many illicit, unlawful, dangerous activities, things that are really anathematic to American success, um the scale of our effort in defeating it has not gotten the effort hasn't gotten any better and the scale has actually shrunk, because the target has has blown up. How would you describe it? That's my description of it, I want to put my cards on the table. And h- in particular if one is, we really suck at this, and we need to do a ton more, And ten is, hey, we got this. There's nothing to worry about here, folks. Where would we where do you think we are right now on one to ten in dealing with the financial enterprise? One to one about ten to ten.

So. I'll I'll s- start now and work back. I would say five, right, in terms of the number between one and ten. Let's start from the beginning in terms of what you talked about, where where the the the level of sophistication have has exponentially increased over the last twenty years. Back twenty years ago, was a much more simplistic money laundering scheme, whether it be the Colombians or the Mexican cartels with bulk cash going across the border. And then the black market peso exchange came into play and that was a much more sophisticated operation, through wire transfers, smurfing cash into banks to get back the funds to the cartels themselves. The Chinese, and and it became more sophisticated over time with Hezbollah, they were sophisticated money lenders out of Europe for cocaine shipments there and around the world and then like I said the black market peso exchange the Chinese have changed the game the reason they changed the game were several reasons and it plays into what we've been talking about the entire, the entire panel so far. They can launder money, whether it's out of Africa with wildlife trafficking, gold smuggling. They can utilize any component of Chinese organized crime and revenue streams, and they can facilitate the movement of those funds anywhere in the world. So what they're doing here in the United States, they can do in Africa with mirror tr- transfers. They can do it in Asia with the scam compounds. They can facilitate all of this because they have technology, they have a global presence, they have a global dashboard, and there are funds everywhere in the globe that allows them, think of giant pots of money, where the funds don't actually have to leave that country. It's just a mirror transfer.

And they exist independent of the criminal enterprises that they support. It's like I'm no longer just your cash guy in the company. I'm the bank and I serve a whole bunch of different customers.

Absolutely. They're independent, they're in partnership, right? I'll give you an example when we start s- when in two thousand eighteen, when I led the efforts out of SOD on a an operation called Project Sleeping Giant that studied exactly what we're talking about today in terms of the money flows from Chinese organized crime Chinese malign influence with fishing vessels and how that was happening with such speed. The Chinese essentially partnered with the Mexican cartels. And I remember asking the top hundred agents investigating this in meetings that we used to have, can anyone in the room tell me of a Chinese money owner that's been kidnapped, extorted, killed in Mexico? Nobody. Why? Because they're in partnership. They value what the Chinese are offering. They've enriched the Mexican cartels beyond their wildest dreams because they absorbed all the risk. and they could transfer the money back within a day, at one to two percent. This happens around the world with all the organized crime activities that we're talking about the Chinese will move money for essentially anybody, the Colombian cartels, all the other w- cartels designated in the last year and a half in our hemisphere, they'll do that for everybody. So You're talking about an uber sophisticated organization that has encrypted communications which is another component to this that we can't wiretap. So you take all of that together and again, the global scale of what we're discussing, and it's very difficult to penetrate, right? It's very difficult to take down. What Mike was talking about earlier is cells can replicate themselves, right? So whether it's on the drug side or the money side, you have money laundering cells under the umbrella of Chinese money launders. I think in terms of what you were talking about in terms of solutions, the first one is the legislation. The the faster government investigators have enriched information that's transparent and accurate, they can identify the network and take action. The second part of this is funding. I think we haven't kept pace with the scale which this happened. We've already described it. So you need specific funding And and and a unit stood up that's tailored and funded, fully funded, to go after Chinese money launders around the globe and utilizing sanctions, utilizing the FEND Act, right, which is a very low threshold for impact. And then utilizing any other authorities that we have, and there are many, to go after specific cells that operate in the United States. And lastly, these same Chinese money launders are moving whether it's illegal fishing, whether it's prostitution, whether it's human smuggling, various components of organized crime. And for the top tier operators of Chinese money loaners you could use the racketeering laws of United States. So, I, they exist in plain sight, a lot of these people. It it's an attack strategy where you go after them aggressively with authorities that make sense at the time.

I'm gonna ask the remaining two witnesses to respond as uh questions for the record, cuz I've used up uh more than all of my time, but I would be interested in your responses if you wouldn't mind taking a moment to write down uh your response after the fact. Thank you.

So to move on.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, I I very much appreciated your your questioning on um how much fentanyl is drugs, illicit substances are coming into the United States through our borders. Um, how little is inspected. If I'm not mistaken, Mister Chairman, back in two thousand twenty and twenty one, a lot of us worked with you, um, and and we received your support, which I appreciate, sir, your leadership. Um, Senator Whitehouse, you were a part of this as well, where there was um legislation passed in two thousand and twenty that required the Department of Homeland Security to submit a report to Congress how to achieve a hundred percent screening on our southern border. And they they they did a report, it was due in twenty twenty one but it came back and it ultimately resulted in a little more than a billion dollars for uh something called um Recon two point O, and one point one billion dollar investment. one point one billion dollars, I mean, they they might be able to design a an ad campaign with that much money. Um, if the Un- the United States goes back and does the analysis on what it took to get to TSA compliant post nine eleven secure security, a technology that was developed at one of our national labs that came out came out of brain imaging, we need to build that to scale so that cars can drive on through it. cargo ships could drive through it, cargo containers coming into our our ports can can can go through it, as opposed to getting offloaded out a ship and then they put on a truck and then the truck drives to an inland facility and then the cartel steal the precursor chemicals in the United States, drive them to Mexico, and then it comes back as fentanyl. I see heads nodding with me in agreement here, cuz that's the truth. That's what's happening with all this stuff. Well, my Republican colleagues led an effort during Big Beautiful Bill and reconciliation too. Homeland Security now has more money than the Marines do. So this administration could do something significant and make me look like I didn't know what I was doing when I voted against it. We could get to a hundred percent screening now if they moved that from one point one billion to just ten billion dollars. worked with our national labs, worked with the intelligence community, developed screening that would help us in America. I believe that we could achieve a hundred percent screening inbound and outbound. And there's a few pilot projects now that are proving to be positive for large cargo containers. But if I'm not mistaken, under Biden, Trump won, and Biden, the reports that came back from DHS were similar. It was like less than ten percent of cargo vehicles were screened coming into the southern border. Ninety percent of the fentanyl that was seized at the southern border, if I have my numbers correct, came from passenger vehicles driven by women, younger women, because that was less likely to get screened. You were in a nice little, I don't wanna call out one company cuz I'll get calls from some CEO or something, but one little cargo car. one small little passenger car driven by a younger woman, you were less likely to get stopped and and searched. That's where we know the fentanyl was coming in, just in cars. And so, Chairman, I I wanna applaud you for that line of questioning. I think there's something we can do here and I would invite all the experts, everyone watching, you know, you know, Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen, get get these folks in gear, man, and and get this science and tech directorate in a way where I think we can do something meaningful. And what I would hope we would see here, Chairman, is a hundred percent screening, not just inbound, a hundred percent screening outbound. So, Senator Whitehouse, to your question, if people are driving money out or whatever, they're not using crypto, but they're starting to move guns or ammo or they're using other things of value, and they're, we're shipping them out of the States, we can find them too. And I just certainly hope that with the investment that we see now and the money available, cuz money's not an issue right now to Homeland Security, that we could get there. So just wanna applaud you there, Mr. Chairman. I hope we can get something meaningful done in that space.

I just have one last question. Um, President Xi of the People's Republic of China, in his public remarks from time to time will talk about the century of humiliation uh for China and uh This is a concept for a period of history beginning with the end of the first opium war and terminating with the establishment of the People's Republic of China under Communist Party rule in nineteen forty nine. So I'm I just wanna get your reaction to this. I know a lot of the precursors that are necessary to manufacture uh fentanyl in Mexico come from China. And I know different administrations have tried to negotiate some sort of enforcement operation with uh the Chinese government itself, but and I realize some of these precursors are have more than one use. In other words, they have legitimate uses as well as illegitimate uses. But it

Mm.

I'm I'd be I I'd be hard to state a circumstance under which a foreign country was so involved in a process which ultimately left, led to the death of tens of thousands of Americans without some sort of a repercussion. And I just wonder, Mister Urben, uh, uh, Mister Brown, and actually all the witnesses, can you give us your, uh, views on, um, Chinese cooperation on the precursors that are necessary? for the Mac manufacturing of fentanyl in Mexico. Mister Urben?

I I mean, it's it's it's limited. Uh, you know, if we had access to data and they they decided to to enforce compliance to Western standards to Chinese multinational chemical companies, you know, it'd be difficult for those precursors to get to the Mexican cartels. And if they shared data on a on a on a or on a on a on a basis where we could affect, you know, our investigations.

Mm-hmm.

Um lastly, listen, the the Chinese control what's happening within China, so they can control those companies, right? I mean, it's that simple at some point.

They seem pretty good at controlling their population and uh the mass surveillance of their people. Uh, Mister Brown, do you have any additional thoughts on that topic?

Yeah, I think one of the additional challenges uh is the the evolution of what I call narcochemistry, right? Ten years ago, we knew if it was potassium protagonist, we could go after it, we regulated it. But the chemists now have come up with what we call the pre-precursors, where you could basically go into Home Depot Um, not that Home Depot's involved, but you could go into a hardware store and buy pre-precursors, mix them and create a stage one or stage two precursor. So the science has gotten more technical to now where the the the Mexican traffickers and the cooks are working in conjunction with the cooks in China, who say, " Hey, here's a new recipe for methamphetamine. Here's a new recipe for fentanyl." So that adds on to the additional challenges of of working with China at the bilateral level, on regulating um some of these now pre precursors which do have legitimate use.

And getting back to the theme of this uh hearing uh these individuals that are able to take those precursors and and produce fentanyl from those they can operate anywhere in the world um Doctor Felbaugh-Brown do you have any observations?

I I would add um one important comment and that is that several US administrations, uh the Obama administration, the first Trump administration, the Biden administration and the second Trump administration all negotiated with China to schedule either fentanyl or analogs of fentanyl, or variety of precursors. And after a lot of bargaining, diplomacy, at which China has become distressingly effective, China does it. Each time China schedules, traffickers move to n Chinese traffickers move to non-scheduled precursors, often teaching um their clients, such as Mexican cartels, how to produce meth or fentanyl. The core loophole remains unaddressed, and has remained unaddressed across the second Biden adres across the second Trump administration, despite the the imposition of tariffs on China and the bargaining that we have seen. Chinese laws do not contain material support clauses, racketeering clauses, no your customer requirements. And so as long as Chinese traffickers move nonscheduled chemicals, they can be Chinese traders. Chinese law enforcement says we cannot act against them. So the most important element that we should be raising in our bilateral conversations with China related to drugs is to close this loophole. It's obviously it's a big thing for the country to change its laws. China changed its laws to schedule the entire class of fentanyl, but it is this vulnerability, the wreck of material support clauses, the wreck of racketeering charges that allow Chinese nefarious entities to continually evade law enforcement by moving on scheduled chemicals.

Well, we've now come to conclusion of the hearing. Let me again thank all of our witnesses for sharing your expertise and answering our questions. Uh, uh, we may in fact have, as Senator Whitehouse said, some additional questions post-hearing and if you would please entertain those, uh, within uh we'll set a a deadline in maybe about a week. Um, and if you would uh answer those questions, we would very much appreciate it. But, um, the hearing is now adjourned.