There appears to be a fair amount of cooperation between China and some of the Central and South American drug cartels. We’ve known for some time now that China has been supplying cartels with fentanyl and other drugs and drug precursors. Now it appears as though some Chinese interests are actually laundering cartel money through the American financial system.

Chinese networks are laundering billions of dollars in drug cartel cash through the U.S. financial system, according to a new report from the Treasury Department.

Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said banks flagged about $312 billion in transactions from suspected Chinese money laundering networks from January 2020 to December 2024. That came from 137,153 Bank Secrecy Act reports from financial institutions. Treasury also linked Chinese money laundering networks to U.S. real estate transactions, casinos, human trafficking and even laundering through assisted living homes in New York. The networks also use Chinese students studying in the U.S. to help facilitate some schemes. Real estate alone accounted for about 13% of the total, but the vast majority was U.S. banks.

“Money laundering networks linked to individual passport holders from the People’s Republic of China enable cartels to poison Americans with fentanyl, conduct human trafficking, and wreak havoc among communities across our great nation,” Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John Hurley said.

Well, that certainly puts a whole new spin on the term “Chinese laundry.”

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) report makes it appear as though Mexico has tighter controls than the United States does, which leads to the use of the American, rather than the Mexican, system to carry out this money-laundering. 

The FinCEN report noted that laws and regulations in Mexico and China also play a role.

“Mexico’s currency restrictions prevent large amounts of U.S. dollars from being deposited into Mexican financial institutions, hindering the cartels’ ability to launder funds through the formal Mexican financial system,” according to the report. The [People’s Republic of China] currency control laws limit the amount of money Chinese citizens can transfer abroad each year.”

This is another piece of evidence we can add to the growing stack of “China is not our friend” indicators.