Matthew Cox

In 2017, the government of China instituted currency controls.

There's essentially banking restrictions that preclude wealthy Chinese from moving money out of the country without permission from the Communist Party.

Yeah, they don't like that.

Well, the problem for the Chinese is this.

Well, they want to keep their money in China and...

There are a lot of wealthy tycoons and just very successful businessmen who are concerned with the trajectory the country is on.

It's more of a collision with the Americans.

Or you saw, you know, the United States essentially start sanctioning Russian banks.

Right.

Or Western-led countries saying, well, we can confiscate this $300 billion in Russian reserves.

Well, that really spooked.

The Chinese?

All other countries in what's characterized as the global south.

Not just seizing their shit.

They banned them from the SWIFT network.

So now they're not going to be able to conduct foreign transactions or they're banned from the Western world.

The Western world's banking networks, banking structures.

And so if you're a wealthy Chinese individual, you want to start hedging your bets a little bit.

Right.

And what's interesting is in 2022, the American government estimates is that there was some $30 to $36 billion in drug proceeds generated in the United States by the Mexicans.