Ryan Knudson

It's Monday, December 22nd.

Coming up on the show, the story of Operation Fortune Runner, a years-long push to bring down a Chinese money laundering ring.

Do you ever watch The Wire?

Julie Shemit spent more than 30 years working for the Department of Justice.

Over the decades, she developed an expertise on money laundering.

She's seen it all, from corrupt Mexican banks to dirty money in Afghanistan.

And Julie abides by an age-old mantra, follow the money.

You can swat bees, but you really want to find the hive.

Exactly.

For years, Mexican drug cartels have relied on money launderers from Latin America.

But in recent years, there's been an explosion of new money laundering groups with ties to China.

So many of these Chinese laundering groups have popped up that authorities have started referring to them by their acronym, CMLOs, Chinese Money Laundering Organizations.

And they are cleaning up and taking tons of market share from their competitors.

There's a few reasons why.

The first has to do with a law in China.

There's a rule that limits how much money Chinese citizens can transfer out of the country.

The cap is equivalent to about $50,000.

The goal is to keep money in the Chinese financial system.

The Chinese government really began to enforce this rule in 2016.

Still, there's a lot of people who want to get money out of China.