Welcome back to a podcast, bribes, Windal, or Steele.

I'm Alexandra Rogge, and today we're talking about the role that lawyers play

in enabling financial criminals to take advantage of the U.S. financial system.

My guest is Scott Greatak.

Scott is a lawyer and the Director of Advocacy of Transparency International U.S. financial system. My guest is Scott Gratak. Scott is a lawyer and the director of advocacy

of transparency international U.S., where he manages the office's legislative agenda and oversees

its anti-corruption legislation lab. He came to TI after working in the U.S. domestic

anti-corruption community for several years. Scott, thank you for joining me.

Great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Why don't you start by describing for us what role U.S. lawyers play in enabling

dirty money, that is money from corruption or other criminal actions, to enter our U.S.

financial system. From a 30,000- foot perspective, if you are a foreign corrupt

official, if you are a drug cartel, if you are a Russian oligarch, if you are an organized crime

leader, if you are a human trafficker, and you are trying to take the proceeds of those crimes, your dirty money,

and you are trying to move them and hide them in a financial system where you're going to get

a pretty good return on your investment and where that money is going to be pretty safe,

safe from both the authorities, law enforcement, being able to track it and seize it

and maybe repatriate it, and safe in also terms of just the rule of law and the property laws

that a country has. The United States now, and this is in the words of the secretary of the treasury, Janet Yellen,

is the number one destination for dirty money in the world. And where lawyers come into this is

there are a number of intermediaries. You know, once upon a time, if Pablo Escobar wanted to take

the proceeds of his drug sales and move them into the United

...