Thank you, Andrea, for your kind introduction. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here today, and especially a warm thanks for all those that traveled to Washington for today’s event.
Your participation today underscores our critical goal of protecting our national security while continuing to strengthen our economy. Economic security and national security go hand-in-hand. Public-private partnerships like today’s event are vital to safeguarding our financial system against threats posed by Iran’s illicit activities.
I also want to be clear about President Trump’s America First Agenda and, correspondingly, Treasury’s priorities on national security. As I said at the Economic Club of New York, “America First” is a holistic agenda that I believe will improve the lives of every American. To get there, I firmly believe in empowering our nation’s banks—from the global systemically important banks present here today—to Main Street lenders that are responsible for financing our local economies. There are multiple factors at play to carry out the America First agenda, but one of those is to ensure the world’s premier financial system is simply inaccessible to those that undermine world order.
Today’s event tackles one such priority: addressing the threat Iran poses to the United States, the Middle East region, and the world. That is why President Trump announced the renewed Maximum Pressure Campaign on Iran. Our objective is to thwart Iran’s ability to lead and sponsor terrorism, deny Iran’s attempts to grow its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs, and punish Iran for its heinous human rights abuses.
Our strategy is clear: we will apply economic pressure to the maximum extent possible to disrupt the Iranian regime’s access to the financial resources that fuel its destabilizing activities. This includes the billions of dollars each year that Iran generates via its oil sales, which the regime also uses to finance its dangerous agenda and support its multiple terrorist proxies and partners, such as Hamas, the Houthis, and Lebanese Hizballah, and Iran-aligned militia groups in Iraq.
For our part, Treasury has launched a comprehensive sanctions campaign, targeting every stage of Iran’s oil supply chain, from extraction to sale and financial settlement. To take one example, last month, on March 20, OFAC designated a “teapot” oil refinery and its chief executive officer for purchasing and refining hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian crude oil, including from vessels linked to the Houthis and the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. As I said when this designation went into effect, teapot refinery purchases of Iranian oil provide the primary economic lifeline for the Iranian regime. The United States is committed to cutting off the revenue streams that enable Tehran’s continued financing of terrorism and development of its nuclear program.
In tandem, Treasury will continue to leverage our information sharing tools, such as this FinCEN Exchange program, which brings together financial institutions, regulatory agencies, and law enforcement, to address these critical considerations in disrupting Iran’s illicit revenue streams.
Today we are here to discuss a lesser known, but equally critical, issue: the wide-ranging financial networks sustaining the Iranian regime.
Iran has developed a complex “shadow banking” system—a clandestine network of financial facilitators that enable Iran to sell its oil, petrochemicals, and other commodities; generate hard currency; and circumvent sanctions.
We have two key goals for today’s discussion.
The first is to enhance our collaboration with the private sector on this issue. This event provides an incredible opportunity to engage in a tactical exchange of information to counter Iran’s destabilizing behavior. We hope this discussion will provide actionable insights that support our investigative efforts while also benefiting your daily work in protecting the financial system.
The second is to improve the feedback that we provide to you all. We recognize the value that financial institutions provide by fulfilling your Bank Secrecy Act reporting and compliance obligations.
Treasury is committed to continuing to provide financial institutions with more regular feedback on the effectiveness of your Bank Secrecy Act reporting. We understand that clarity and responsiveness are crucial, and we will continue exploring ways to enhance this process.
We are also focused on a range of illicit finance challenges beyond Iran, including narcotics trafficking. Treasury will continue to press on a number of actions to protect our financial system from being accessed by narcotic traffickers from all four sides of the U.S. border, as evidenced by a recent Geographic Targeting Order to further combat the illicit activities and money laundering of Mexico-based cartels and other criminal actors along the southwest border of the United States. We will also continue our work to protect our homeland from human and child smugglers and traffickers, all with amplified priority.
Finally, I want to again express my gratitude for your participation and your institutions’ commitment to protecting our financial system from Iranian sanctions evasion and other illicit activity. The work we do together is critical to protecting our financial system and our national security, and the values we uphold as Americans. I know I speak for my team when I say that we are excited to hear and learn from you all today. With that, I will turn it back over to Director Gacki to introduce our first session, which I am looking forward to facilitating.
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The FinCEN Exchange program is a statutorily authorized voluntary public-private partnership that convenes relevant stakeholders, including law enforcement agencies and financial institutions. The program aims to protect our national security and our citizens from harm by combatting money laundering and its related crimes, including terrorism, through public-private dialogue that encourages, enables, and acknowledges industry focus on high-value and high-impact activities. The program began in 2017 and was codified as part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020.