Dismantling Transnational Criminal Organizations. I would like to welcome the members of the subcommittee and express my appreciation to witnesses for being here today. The chair now recognizes himself for an opening statement, for which i will deliver mr. Kings opening statement. Law enforcement officers use many weapons to fight terrorism and crime on our streets. Some of these weapons, such as badges, guns and squad cars are easy to see. They are the hallmarks of police work. There are other weapons, however, that are harder to identify but every bit as vital. Among these less visible weapons, access to timely and Accurate Information is often times the difference between a successful investigation and an unsolved crime. In todays threat environment, much of the information needed by Law Enforcement in the United States is generated overseas. This is particularly true when it comes to combatting complex Transnational Criminal Organizations that threaten our safety here at home. These sophisticated criminal enterprises do not stop at borders. Instead, they extend beyond the limits imposed by nation states and threaten the peace and stability of multiple countries. The only way to defeat syndicates that operate across International Borders is through partnerships with foreign counterparts. It is incumbent on u. S. Law enforcement agencies to work with our overseas allies to ensure that coordinated enforcement efforts are brought to bear that the menace that ms13 and other tcos pose to our nation. In addition to information sharing, another essential step in fighting in addition to informationsharing, another essential step in the fight against tcos is to develop the capacity of our foreign partners to defeat these networks before they become a threat to the United States. Todays hearing will feature testimony from representatives of federal agencies tasked with combatting the tread of tcos. These entities bring various tools and capabilities to the fight, including investigating and prosecuting tcos as well as working with our foreign counterparts to strengthen and support their efforts to disrupt and dismantle tcos. These witnesses include expert from the federal Bureau Investigation and from the department of Homeland Security and the bureau of International Narcotics and lawmaker affairs from the department of state. All of the agencies participate in protecting the u. S. Homeland by working to defeat tcos overseas. Each of these agencies is responsible for collecting, vetting and disseminating tcorelated information. Sharing this overseas information with state and local domestic Law Enforcement agencies enhances the ability of our men and women in blue to keep this country safe at home from the threat posed by tcos. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. Their understanding and vast experiences will provide the committee with a comprehensive overview of how the cycle of international informationsharing functions. This overview will in turn afford the committee an opportunity to identify enhancements that can be made to better equip u. S. Law enforcement at all levels to share information in their efforts to disrupt and dismantle tcos, both home and abroad. I now recognize Ranking Member rice for her opening statement. Thank you, chairman perry, for holding todays hearing and thank you to the witnesses for your testimony today. In june of 2017, we held a similar hearing on how we can both combat transnational Gang Violence on long island while empowering young people with the knowledge, support and resources they need to reject gangs in our communities. As we find ourselves here to discuss a similar topic again, i hope that todays discussion will include a broad look at Transnational Criminal Organizations around the world. As we all know, ms13 and the 18 street gang and rival gangs are criminal organizations who commit brutal acts of violence and have taken too many lives. They, like other transNational Gangs, are organizations that revel in violence, crave fear and terrorize the communities in which they live and operate and recruit their members. As the former Nassau County district attorney, ive seen how vicious and unrepetant these gangs are. Ive seen ms13 and 18 street gang members laugh at the judge as they were sentenced to life in prison or deported. I want the record to be clear, i believe all violent criminals should be punished to the full extent of the law. I believe violent criminals in this country illegally should be deported and prevented from ever coming back. Dismantling violent criminal organizations like mcht s 13 should be a priority for Law Enforcement officials and lawmakers at all levels. However, i know the vast majority of immigrants in this country are not criminals. They are usually the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators. I know and understand that you cannot destroy a gang like ms13 without the help of immigrant communities. You need members of the community to talk and provide information, report crimes, for that they need to trust you. They need to know that stepping forward to help will not lead to them being detained and deported and ripped away from their families. Ill remind the committee and my republican colleagues that many of the members of ms13 are, in fact, immigrants and children and descendants of immigrants who have become victims of gang threats, violence and recruitment. More, it is clear to me that President Trump, attorney general sessions and republicans in congress have sought and continue to use the threat of ms13 to justify their push to build a wall on the southern border and round up and deport millions of immigrants, including those whose only crime is being in this country without paperwork. Last week, President Trump and dhs secretary nielson made another shameful antiimmigration decision by ending temporary protected status for 37,000 salvadoran tps holders in new york. Send them back to country this decision came on the heels of the trump administrations decision to end daca and temporary protected status for haitians and nicaraguans. They are not concerned about the destabilizing effects that such u. S. Policies will have on communities like the one that peter king and i serve on long island. On average, tps recipients in our state have lived in the United States for an average of 21 years. They are our neighbors, our friends and our coworkers. I recognize this hearing is not about tps, but i recognize a Republicancontrolled Congress doesnt want to negotiate so i have to use every platform to address this issue. I yield back. The chair thanks the gentlelady. The chair now thanks the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from texas, mr. Mccaul. Thank you, chairman perry. Transnational criminal organizations are a serious and growing threat to the American People. They disregard the rule of law of all nations and use their networks to smuggle struggles and traffic human beings for Sexual Exploitation and slave labor. They resort to brutal violence and intimidation tactics to carry out their illegal deeds. These networks of vile individuals and gangs line ms13 have been known to kidnap, torture and behead their victims. Top officials at dhs are very alarmed by their actions. Before becoming white house chief of staff, secretary of Homeland Security john kelly explained to a National Security forum last july, to me personally, that one of his top concerns is the partnership between tcos and International Terror groups. If such alliances were forms, terrorists would have an easier time sneaking a dirty bomb or other catastrophic weapon and resources into the United States. Further, in written testimony before our full committee, back in november, acting secretary duke stated that tcos are, quote, bringing drugs, violence and Dangerous Goods across our borders and pose a persistent National Security threat to the United States, end of quote. Unfortunately, some of these partnerships are starting to take hold. Recent reports have shown that hezbollah has been very active in recent years with International Drug cartels in latin america. We cannot allow such dangerous actors to gather in our hemisphere unchallenged. The ability of tcos secreting terrorists and wmds into our country is a grave threat and this committee is going to undertake a thorough review of these possibility so we can prevent them from happening. Sadly, these tcos have an easy time infiltrating our communities because the security of our southern border is just not Strong Enough to stop them. Hopefully we will soon be able to fix that. Legislation i introduced to strengthen Border Security with new infrastructure, including a wall, more boots on the ground and new technology was passed out of our full committee in october. Last week, that important legislation was incorporated into a larger bill to fix our broken immigration system. I am hopeful that we can pass it through the congress and get it to the president s desk very soon. All three branches of government working together is essential in this fight, but we must also create and foster partnerships with governments in latin america to help eliminate these threats from tcos. One of the most important lessons we learned from 9 11 attacks is that we must effectively communicate Vital Information among federal departments and agencies and Law Enforcement. Doing so will save many innocent lives. Todays witnesses represent the hardworking men and women from fbi, i. C. E. And state department, who work very hard for the protection of their fellow americans, and id like to thank each of you individuals for being here today. And before i yield back, i just want to say on a personal note, before becoming a member of congress, i was a chief of counterterrorism and National Security in the Western District of texas in the u. S. Attorneys office. I had the texasmexico border in my jurisdiction. Ive been dealing with this issue for quite some time. Seven terms in congress and many years as a federal prosecutor. This problem has not stopped, its gotten worse. It has not gotten better. Its now more of a threat, and i think it cries out for action from congress and from the administration to finally once for and all get this job done. And with that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Chair thanks the gentleman. Other members of the committee are reminded that Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. We are pleased to have a distinguished panel of witnesses before us today on this important topic. All the witnesses are reminded that their written testimony will be submitted for the record. Our first witness is mr. Stephen eve richardson, the assistant director for the criminal Investigative Division of the federal bureau of investigation. Mr. Richardson joined the fbi as a special agent in 1996. He has worked with the bureau in louisiana, tennessee, virginia and several stints at headquarters. Throughout his career, he has specialized in the investigation of white collar crime, public corruption, hate crime, violent crime, gang matters and counterterrorism. Since april 2016, mr. Richardson has served as assistant director of the criminal Investigation Division with oversight of all fbi criminal matters. Thank you for being here today and does he recognize individually or all . Okay. Well, thank you for being here today and were going to recognize you individually so you can begin with your testimony, mr. Richardson. Representative perry, chairman mccaul, Ranking Member rice and members of the committee, id like to thank each of you for inviting me here today to discuss this very important issue. My name is steve richardson, im the assistant director for the fbis criminal Investigative Division. The issues were going to talk about today fall under my leadership at the fbi. The fbi is dedicated to defeating those transnational organized crime groups referred to as tco groups which pose a threat to our economic and National Security. To combat the ongoing threat, the fbi has a longaccomplished tco program. The fbi uses the rack tear influence and corrupt organizations act to expand criminal accountability for a number of predicate offenses and to expand a single offense across multiple members of a criminal enterprise. Utilizing a multipronged approach to target a variety of criminal activities and impact the groups financial stability, the fbi is able to disrupt or dismantle the entire enterprise, not just a few key people. The fbi leverages trusted relationships both domestically and internationally to combat and influence the reach of these transnational criminal enterprises. The fbi has long been a proponent of the Task Force Model and in 1992 we stood up the first safe streets Violent Gang Task force specifically to address transNational Gangs. The mission of these task forces is to fully integrate our state and local partners to address threats posed by violent criminal gangs in communities across our great country. This involves working with state and local Task Force Officers commonly referred to as tfos who have direct knowledge of the criminal activities occurring within their specific jurisdictions. The collaboration of fbi special agents and local Law Enforcement creates a comprehensive approach, utilizing both state and federal statutes to address these violent gangs from top to bottom. The fbi currently operates and provides oversight to 169 of these particular task forces compromised of nearly 800 special agents, 1,400 tfo and 58 other federal Law Enforcement partners in all of the fbis 56 field offices. Collectively, these task forces average approximately 5100 arrests of violent criminal gang members annually and have averaged over 2,000 seizures of firearms in each of the past two years. Our ultimate goal and the goal of each task force is to have a positive effect on the communities by disrupting and dismantling violent criminal organizations. On the international front, the fbis transnational antigang task forces, we refer to those as t. A. G. S work with International Partners to target transnational games internationally and locally. It is responsible for the investigation of the ms13 gang and other violent transNational Gangs such as the 18th street gang. The mission of the t. A. G. Is to conduct Gang Enforcement operations and gather actionable strategic intelligence for domestic use by our safe streets, Violent Gang Task forces and to further disseminate this information to u. S. Law enforcement partners. Recently, the t. A. G. S conducted a coordinated arrest operation in all three countries in the northern triangle, targeting both ms13 and 18th street, resulting in the arrest of 754 violent gang members. The arrest also led to the seizure of multiple items of evidence, which are currently being exploited for their intelligence value. Apart from our task forces, the fbis criminal Investigative Division actively participates in multiagency intelligence entities, such as the National Gang intelligence center, special Operations Division and the organized crime task force. Although vetting and possible arrest of individuals at the border is primarily a function of the department of Homeland Security, the fbi makes every effort together to share intelligence on a timely basis related to the movement and recruitment of gang members prior to and upon entry in the United States. Informationsharing is critical to fulfilling this responsibility and the fbis dedicated to improving communication with our partners. Please know we will continue to direct tremendous resources and effort to targeting, investigating, prosecuting and dismantling these transnational criminal gangs. Chairman mccaul, chairman king, representative perry, Ranking Member rice, and other members of the committee, i thank you again for having me here today. Im honored to represent the fbi and the fine men and women of our organization. And i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Richardson. First of all, let me express my regret for not being here on time. We had a meeting of the intelligence committee, which went overtime. But i want to thank all the witnesses for their testimony up until now. I want to thank mr. Perry for filling in for me. Im sure he did a far better job than i would have. I thank the Rankin