Somali fraud scheme not limited to Minnesota: Missouri State Treasurer Vivek Malek is imposing new requirements that remittance payment businesses ensure that customers are lawfully in the U.S. before they can send money to foreign countries. He hopes other states follow suit.
he Somali immigrant fraud scandal in Minnesota has put an uncomfortable spotlight on foreign remittance payments schemes that siphon billions of dollars a year from America to overseas. Although national attention has been focused on Minnesota, another state is poised to launch a crackdown.
Missouri State Treasurer Vivek Malek told Just the News he is teaming up with the state legislature to impose new requirements that remittance payment businesses ensure that customers are lawfully in the United States before they can send money to foreign countries, and he hopes other states will follow suit.
Cutting off incentives for illegal immigrants
“Missouri is stepping up by cutting off one of the biggest remaining incentives for illegal immigration, which is unverified foreign money transfers, because the economy is something that drives everybody to come to the United States,” Malek said in a wide-ranging interview with the John Solomon Reports podcast this week.
Malek said his research found that more than $200 billion leaves the United States annually through remittances, with Mexico alone receiving over $52 billion. Some sizable portion of that involves illegal immigrants, most of whom crossed the border during the Biden years.
“It has been found that at least $4.4 billion in remittances sent to Mexico have been tied to cartel money laundering through small wire transfers,” he said. “Cartels don’t sneak money across the border or throw the bag across the border. They wire it. And if we are serious about crushing cartels, we have to shut down their financial arteries.”
Malek, a lawful U.S. immigrant who worked 16 years to become a U.S. citizen, ran last year for the state treasurer’s job on a promise he would help President Donald Trump end the scourge of illegal immigration. Part of that effort includes stopping illegal immigrants from sending money overseas that they earned in the U.S. without paying taxes, he said.
Yet
Nothing will occur
Congress is a big club