During a congressional hearing on Chinese money laundering and \u201ccleaning cartel cash\u201d on Tuesday\u2014a meeting that focused mostly on the topic of fentanyl\u2014Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) spoke out against a congressional bill that would ease access to banking services for state-legal marijuana businesses, pointing to a deadly 2022 shooting at a cannabis facility that involved people who \u201cwere all from China,\u201d the senator said.<\/p>\n
Grassley showed members of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control a video of law enforcement responding to the incident, which occurred at what he described as a \u201cfraudulently registered medical marijuana farm in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma.\u201d The shooter, Chen Wu, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cInside, four workers were packaging marijuana, supervised by their boss who, like Wu, they were all from China,\u201d Grassley said. \u201cWu waved a nine-millimeter pistol as he entered the garage and demanded back pay. He fired a warning shot into his boss\u2019s knee and told the group they had a half an hour to pay him. If they didn\u2019t, he\u2019d kill then all. And that\u2019s exactly what Wu did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grassley pointed to the event as \u201ca troubling example that should caution Congress to consider carefully legislative proposals easing money laundering laws.\u201d He also said it \u201cwasn\u2019t an isolated occurrence,\u201d noting that police have shut down \u201cmore than 800 marijuana farms in the last two years for operating illegally.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to Oklahoma law enforcement, 2,000 of the 3,000 licensed marijuana farms flagged for suspicious activity over the last year had a Chinese connection,\u201d he continued, \u201cproviding funding, labor or both.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nGrassley\u2019s argument at the hearing<\/a> was that marijuana banking reform, most notably the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, could enable Chinese money laundering by fraudulent businesses operating under he auspices of state legalization.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of debate about whether state-sanctioned marijuana businesses should be able to access the U.S. banking system,\u201d he said. \u201cThe proposal on the table assumes that state [and] local regulations will hold back organized crime. The Kingfisher County murders show us that that assumption is just plain wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf this legislation passes, Chinese money laundering organizations will have an additional avenue for cleaning dirty money,\u201d the senator told colleagues. \u201cThey can simply hand it off to Chinese criminal organizations fraudulently running state sanctioned marijuana farms, for introduction into the U.S. banking system.\u201d<\/p>\n Later in the hearing, Grassley asked William Kimbell, chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) about the sufficiency of state cannabis regulations.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven history like I just stated,\u201d he said, \u201cdoes this fact that a state\u2014any state\u2014licensed a marijuana farm mean that the farm isn\u2019t generating illegal proceeds?\u201d<\/p>\n Kimbell responded that DEA has identified 23 states where \u201cChinese organizations have taken over the cultivation of marijuana. Some of those are legitimate, some of those are illegitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe vast majority that we find and working with our state and local counterparts are illegitimate,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe people working in those facilities and cultivating for those facilities are controlled and work at the behest of Chinese money laundering organizations or growers\u2019 organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe found this is a significant problem,\u201d he added, \u201cand it goes from California all the way across the country and to the Northeast, and it\u2019s becoming a serious challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said after Grassley\u2019s comments that \u201caccording to news reports in 2021, 80 percent of the marijuana sold in California originated in illegal grows.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCan anybody explain to me why, when states have presumably legalized some aspect of the marijuana trade, some medical marijuana and others recreational, why 80 percent of the marijuana sold in California\u2026originated in illegal grows?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI think with any business, there\u2019s the ability to break the law with that business,\u201d answered Kimbell, DEA\u2019s operations chief. \u201cBy selling marijuana illegally through the black market, they\u2019re able to skirt tax laws and they\u2019re able to do a multitude of different things by not following regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo by presumably legalizing, at least at the state level, if not at the federal level, of marijuana trade, it hasn\u2019t eliminated the illegal activities of growers, distributors and users, right?\u201d Cornyn questioned.<\/p>\n \u201cCorrect,\u201d Kimbell replied.<\/p>\n Grassley\u2019s and Cornyn\u2019s criticisms of state-legal marijuana markets and the pending banking legislation come on the heels of similar pushback from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), whose office recently told Marijuana Moment that the lawmaker \u201ccontinues to oppose marijuana banking.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Across the aisle, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Tuesday, in the aftermath of a DEA marijuana rescheduling decision he called \u201chistoric,\u201d that he remains \u201cstrongly committed\u201d to passing marijuana banking and legalization bills<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is great news that DEA is finally recognizing that restrictive and draconian cannabis laws need to change to catch up to what science and the majority of Americans have said loud and clear,\u201d the majority leader said. \u201cWhile this rescheduling announcement is a historic step forward, I remain strongly committed to continuing to work on legislation like the SAFER Banking Act as well as the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, which federally deschedules cannabis by removing it from the Controlled Substances Act.\u201d<\/p>\n The SAFER Banking Act already already moved through the Senate Banking Committee last September. The legalization bill, meanwhile, is expected to be reintroduced on Wednesday, after Schumer and other prime sponsors solicited support from colleagues, with a sign-on deadline passing last week.<\/p>\n How news of DEA\u2019s rescheduling decision affects the prospects of advancing other cannabis legislation is yet to be seen. The SAFER Banking Act already enjoys bipartisan support, though sources have said Republican leadership\u2014principally McConnell\u2014has posed an obstacles to pushing it forward as part of an unrelated aviation bill<\/a>\u00a0alongside cryptocurrency regulations legislation.<\/p>\n Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said during an interview with The Dales Report on Tuesday that DEA\u2019s possible reclassification of cannabis is something she\u2019s\u00a0\u201cgoing to be looking at\u201d in terms of how it affects the SAFER Banking Act<\/a>, as well as her own separate legalization bill.<\/p>\n \u201cHow does this affect things moving forward?\u201d she asked. \u201cWhat\u2019s the next goalpost?\u201d<\/p>\n Schumer Says DEA Marijuana Rescheduling Decision Is \u2018Historic,\u2019 But He Remains \u2018Strongly Committed\u2019 To Passing Banking And Legalization Bills<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis \/\/ Side Pocket Images.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Senator Attacks Marijuana Banking Bill At Hearing On Chinese Money Laundering<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
During a congressional hearing on Chinese money laundering and \u201ccleaning cartel cash\u201d on Tuesday\u2014a meeting that focused mostly on the topic of fentanyl\u2014Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) spoke out against a congressional bill that would ease access to banking services for state-legal marijuana businesses, pointing to a deadly 2022 shooting atContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74854"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74855,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74854\/revisions\/74855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Senator Attacks Marijuana Banking Bill At Hearing On Chinese Money Laundering<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"