Page:Title 3 CFR 2000 Compilation.djvu/362

 Title 3--The President special internal agency to trace money laundering, and Brazil joined the Fi- nancial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Egmont Group, two international bodies charged with improving anti-money laundering efforts. Brazilian authorities seized more cocaine in 1999 than in 1998, and can- nabis seizures increased by six-fold. As in past years, Brazilian authorities identified no opium or coca production in \177999. The GOB acted vigorously against cannaNs production in the country's northeast, eradicating over three times as many hectares as in \177998. Burma Burma is the world's second largest source of illicit opium and heroin, exceeded only by Afghanistan, and currently accounts for approximately 80 percent of the total production of Southeast Asian opium. Largely due to severe drought conditions in poppy growing areas, production and cultiva- tion continued to decline significantly in \177999 for the third year in a row. In \177999 there were an estimated 89,500 hectares under opium poppy cul- tivation, down al percent from \177998. This hectarage yielded a maximum of \177,090 metric tons of opium gum, a8 percent lower than in \177998 and less than half the average production during the last decade. The Government of Burma (GOB) maintained most of its opium crop-eradication efforts and expanded the program to an additional 9,800 acres. Seizures of methamphetamine in \177999 exceeded 1998's record figures, although opium and heroin seizures were well below \177998 levels. Burma made its first airport seizures of illicit drugs in \177999. While there were cases of drug interdiction and arrests of members of some cease-fire groups for drug trafficking, the GOB has been unwilling or unable to take on the most powerful groups directly. Cease-fire agreements with insurgent ethnic groups dependent on the drug trade implicitly tolerate continued involve- ment in drug trafficking for varying periods of time. The ethnic armies, such as the United Wa State Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, remain armed and heavily involved in the heroin trade. The GOB expressed support for eradication efforts, crop substitution, and development assistance, but allocated few resources to such projects. GOB policy is to force the leaders in the ethnic areas to spend their own reve- nues, including from the drug trade, on social and physical infrastructure. The approach limits the GOB's ability to continue or expand its counter- drug efforts. Burma's \177993 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law con- forms to the \177988 UN Drug Convention and contains useful legal tools for addressing money laundering, seizing drug-related assets, and prosecuting drug conspiracy cases. GOB officials, claiming they lack sufficient exper- rise, have been slow to implement the law, targeting few, if any, major traf- tickers and their drug-related assets. Money laundering in Burma and the return of drug profits laundered elsewhere are thought to be significant fac- tors in the overall Burmese economy, although the extent of this problem is impossible to measure accurately. The cease-fire agreements condone money laundering, as the government encouraged these groups to invest in "legitimate" businesses as an alternative to trafficking, thus extending to them the opportunity to sanitize past illicit proceeds with investments in hotels and construction companies, for example. 362

�