H.R. 1577 — Stop Fentanyl Money Laundering Act of 2025

This section authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to require domestic financial institutions and domestic financial agencies to take one or more special measures described in 31 U.S.C. 5318A(b) (i.e., enhanced recordkeeping and due diligence requirements, information reporting, or restrictions on correspondent or payable-through accounts) upon determining that one or more financial institutions operating outside the United States, one or more classes of transactions within or involving a jurisdiction outside the United States, or one or more types of accounts within or involving such a jurisdiction is of primary money laundering concern in connection with illicit fentanyl and narcotics financing. The section further (1) permits the Secretary to submit classified information ex parte and in camera in any judicial review; (2) applies disclosure exemptions and prohibitions, as well as Freedom of Information Act protections, to reports filed pursuant to such requirements; (3) applies penalties from section 9714(d) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (P.L. 116-283); (4) authorizes civil actions for injunctions as described in section 9714(e) of that Act; and (5) adopts definitions of relevant terms from section 9714 of that Act.

This section directs the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to issue, not later than one year after enactment, a new advisory to financial institutions on identifying Chinese professional money laundering facilitating fentanyl and other synthetic opioid trafficking. The advisory must incorporate three prior FinCEN advisories: (1) FIN–2014–A005, entitled “Update on U.S. Currency Restrictions in Mexico: Funnel Accounts and TBML”; (2) FIN–2010–A001, entitled “Advisory to Financial Institutions on Filing Suspicious Activity Reports regarding Trade-Based Money Laundering”; and (3) FIN–2019–A006, entitled “Advisory to Financial Institutions on Illicit Financial Schemes and Methods Related to the Trafficking of Fentanyl and Other Synthetic Opioids”.

This section directs the Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to issue, not later than 180 days after enactment, guidance to U.S. financial institutions on filing suspicious activity reports under the Bank Secrecy Act related to suspected narcotics trafficking by transnational criminal organizations. The section further requires FinCEN to prioritize research into such reports indicating narcotics trafficking connections and, not later than one year after enactment, to brief the House Committees on Financial Services and Foreign Affairs and the Senate Committees on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and Foreign Relations on the usefulness of the guidance.

This section directs the Comptroller General of the United States, in consultation with the Department of the Treasury and other relevant agencies, to provide the House Committees on Financial Services and Foreign Affairs and the Senate Committees on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and Foreign Relations with an unclassified report and briefing not later than 360 days after enactment of this Act. The report must address lessons learned from previous drug crises, including the crack cocaine crisis of the 1980s, with respect to (1) how transnational criminal organizations target individual and community victims; (2) the negative impacts on those victims, including financial and health effects; (3) mitigation activities that were effective in lessening such targeting or impacts; and (4) recommendations to confront such targeting applicable to the ongoing opioid crisis.