WASHINGTON—United States Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), members of the Senate Banking Committee, today introduced the Preventing Illicit Finance Through Partnership Act of 2024, legislation to combat illicit finance by fostering communication between federal law enforcement agencies and private companies.
“Federal law enforcement agencies already have the tools to combat illicit finance—they just need to communicate with the private sector to deploy them most effectively,” said Senator Hagerty. “By fostering collaboration and information sharing, this bill will ensure that all parties at the table are working together to detect and disrupt bad actors.”
“There are bad actors in every industry and crypto assets are no exception but make no mistake – crypto itself is not the problem,” said Senator Lummis. “The Preventing Illicit Finance Through Partnership Act will allow federal regulators to work with the private sector to gain insight into the often-misunderstood world of crypto to weed out bad actors without crushing an entire emerging industry. This public-private partnership will help inform regulators about the use cases for crypto assets and clear the way to establishing federal rules of the road that will keep the industry in America and solidify crypto’s role as the next frontier of financial innovation.”
The Preventing Illicit Finance Through Partnership Act of 2024 establishes a pilot program for federal agencies and the private sector to share information related to illicit finance. The program would be chaired by the Attorney General and composed of 20 voluntarily participating money services businesses and cryptocurrency companies. When certain federal agencies investigate a potential illicit finance violation, threat, or risk, the agency may securely share information about the matter with a private sector entity participating in the program. The private sector entity may then use the information to identify or report potential illicit finance activity. The program provides private companies a channel to alert federal agencies to any suspicious money transfers and sanctions evasion.
Background information on the bill can be found here.
Full text of the legislation can be found here.
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