Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes in the Department of Treasury of the United States Daniel L. Glaser intends to discuss with colleagues in Moscow next week matters related to combating trans-national crime.

Glaser said at hearings at the US Senate on Tuesday that his agency will work with international like-minded partners and the international financial community to build an international coalition to combat trans-national organized crime. He said he will travel to Moscow next week to discuss this issue and strengthen the continued collaboration with the Russian partners. In the United States government Glaser in recent years has been working especially closely with colleagues from Russia on combating illegal financial activities, including the suppression of terrorist financing channels. One of the priorities of the US Treasury is currently suppressing the financing channels of trans-national criminal groups.

This July, US President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order providing for sanctions against major trans-national criminal organisations. This means that assets and property of mafia found in the United States will be blocked. The presidential order states that the activity of trans-national criminal organisations is an extraordinary threat to national security, foreign policy and the US economy. It also states, in particular, that "...the activities of significant trans-national criminal organisations, such as those listed in the Annex to this order, have reached such scope and gravity that they threaten the stability of international political and economic systems. Such organisations are becoming increasingly sophisticated and dangerous to the United States; they are increasingly entrenched in the operations of foreign governments and the international financial system, thereby weakening democratic institutions, degrading the rule of law, and undermining economic markets. These organisations facilitate and aggravate violent civil conflicts and increasingly facilitate the activities of other dangerous persons. I therefore determine that significant trans-national criminal organisations constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat."

According to the White House, crime syndicates are increasingly involved in the operations of foreign governments and international financial system, thereby weakening the democratic institutions and the rule of law and undermining the economic markets. "In years past, (trans-national organised crime) was largely regional in scope, hierarchically structured, and had only occasional links to terrorism," the Obama administration report says. "Today's criminal networks are fluid, striking new alliances with other networks around the world and engaging in a wide range of illicit activities, including cybercrime and providing support for terrorism." "The demand for illicit drugs, both in the United States and abroad, fuels the power, impunity and violence of criminal organisations around the globe," the White House's Strategy to Combat Trans-national Organised Crime said.

Sanctions are introduced against four organisations - Bratsky Krug (Brothers' Circle) that operates in Eurasia (in Russia the organisation is known as Bratva), Italian Camorra, Japanese Yakuza and the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas. Los Zetas is a narcotic smuggling cartel that dates to the late 1990s and began as a mercenary group aimed at killing rival drug dealers. The group is "responsible for numerous murders," including several of US law enforcement officials, according to David Cohen, who heads the Treasury Department's Terrorism and Financial Intelligence office. The group had already been designated under Treasury's "drug kingpin" sanctions.

Japan's Yakuza, portrayed in numerous gangland films, has an estimated 80,000 members, officials said. Its narcotics and criminal enterprises are hidden by investments in construction, real estate, finance and other legal businesses.

The Camorra, centred in Naples but spread throughout Italy, earns $25 billion a year in global operations, officials said, in criminal activity ranging from drug trafficking to counterfeiting.

The Brothers' Circle, also known as Moscow Centre, is an underworld society spread throughout Russia and former Soviet satellites. Its members are multiethnic, officials said, and conduct a variety of criminal activities in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

ITAR-TASS November 2, 2011 Wednesday 12:43 PM EST