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States should work with like-minded partners to amplify mutually held priorities in multilateral fora. Organizations such as The Interdiction Committee (TIC) should leverage the authorities and capabilities of its member agencies to enhance interdiction and capacity-building initiatives within transshipment nations for drugs bound for the United States. Support provided to international partners should be complemented by robust assessments of effectiveness and accountability for measurable outcomes. The United States will also work with multilateral organizations, such as the UNODC and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), to shed light on and respond to trafficking trends and enhance international cooperation. « « « « « « NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY 91 Principle 2: Obstruct and disrupt financial activities of transnational criminal organizations that manufacture illicit drugs and traffic them into the United States. The ingenuity of drug traffickers is undeniable: from smuggling drugs across the southwest border on rail cars using well-engineered ventilated tunnels, to capitalizing on the massive volume of traffic flowing through the ports of entry in order to obscure contraband, to building semi-submersibles in the jungles of South America. However, the traffickers' ultimate goal is not getting drugs to market in the United States, but getting usable profits back to fund the illicit activities of the TCOs. The vast quantities of illicit drugs smuggled throughout the world generate enormous revenue, which must be moved and laundered so that traffickers can perpetuate the illicit enterprise. While bulk cash smuggling remains one of the predominant methods for moving illicit proceeds, trade-based money laundering (TBML) such as BlackMarket Peso Exchanges, and mirror transfers via informal networks are also used. Additionally, TCOs are growing more comfortable with darknet markets and the use of virtual assets to launder funds, although the size and scope of drug proceeds generated on the darknet and laundered via virtual assets remain low in comparison to cash-based retail street sales. 336 TCOs require funds to operate their illicit supply chains and exert their transnational corruptive influence. We must use and strengthen every available tool and seek new tools to uncover financial networks and obstruct and disrupt the illicit financial activities that fund TCOs that traffic illicit drugs into the United States. A. Enhance international partners' financial tools to target trafficking groups and deny them illicit drug proceeds. (Agencies Involved: DOJ/OCDETF; DOS, Treasury/ IRS, TFI) TCOs generate tens of billions of dollars in illicit proceeds through control of the drug trade that puts dangerous illicit drugs onto streets in the United States. While the revenue is generated from the sale of illicit drugs in the United States, illicit proceeds generated by wholesalers or larger transnational drug trafficking organizations must ultimately be moved and laundered out of the United States and back to the TCOs where they are used to fund the cycle of illicit activity and facilitate corruption and malign influence. We must work with our international partners to deny TCOs the illicit proceeds that fund their operations by enhancing anti-money laundering regulations and international standards. By working with vulnerable nations to enhance these regulations we can make it more challenging for TCOs, and the money laundering organizations that support them, to launder illicit proceeds and turn illicit drug revenue into operating capital. By denying TCOs the operating capital to purchase precursor chemicals we would impact the illicit drug trade far upstream of the street retail environment. As per Strategic Objective 5.8 of the U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption, we must also consider the role of third-party enablers of illicit finance such as complicit lawyers and law firms, accountants, realtors/real estate firms, title insurers, art dealers, and other commercial enterprises and individuals that facilitate the illicit economy in source and transshipment countries.9 9 “The U.S. Government will prioritize the development of a common understanding of corruption risks through joint analyses that outline corruption dynamics, networks, and nodes; consider enablers and drivers of corrupt behavior; examine the potential impact of providing foreign assistance (including security sector assistance); and « « « « « « 92 NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY B. Combat Transnational Criminal Organizations’ financial structures and target their illicit proceeds. (Agencies Involved: DHS/CBP, ICE; DOJ/ATF, DEA, FBI, HIDTA, OCDETF; DOS; IC; DOD; Treasury/FINCEN, OFAC, TFFC, IRS) Street-level sales of illicit drugs are largely conducted with cash.337 The manufacture, transport, and sale of illicit drugs involve multiple transactions that require the laundering of illicit finances across national, regional, and international boundaries via multiple methodologies. 338 These methodologies can include tax amnesties, casinos and gambling, transaction laundering, bank capture, shell companies and trusts, structuring, cashintensive businesses, trade-based money laundering (TBML), commodity investment, round-tripping, cyber-laundering, and bulk cash smuggling (BCS). Tax amnesties, roundtripping, shell 

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