Hearing assesses link between human trafficking, U.S. financial markets

The House Financial Services Committee, through its Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, held a hearing on Jan. 30 to explore how human traffickers exploit U.S. financial markets. It looked at how financial institutions monitor, review, and verify depository relations with a payment processor and better understood potential problems and long-term challenges that exist, including examples of how human traffickers avoid detection.

 “As with any large multi-national criminal enterprise, the life blood of human trafficking is the ability to transfer money,” said Subcommittee Chairman Ann Wagner (R-MO). “If the traffickers are unable to move their ill-gotten proceeds, or to purchase adds to traffic victims on sites such Backpage or the Erotic Review—their schemes fail. To date, Congress has not devoted sufficient attention to the vitally important question of how...