Plenty of folks have asked me how much Russian oligarchs have plowed into the American economy, and I have to offer a disappointing answer: We have absolutely no idea.

We have no idea how much it is. And we have no idea where it is.

There are three simultaneous dynamics at play:

1) America's rampant secrecy provisions/loopholes.

Real estate, private equity, hedge funds, luxury goods—all have enjoyed decades-long exemptions from anti-money laundering regulations. (Plus secrecy in high-end artwork/crypto.)

2) The free availability of tools *purposely designed* to strip any identifying information.

Decades of anonymous shell company production in Delaware, Wyoming, Nevada. The explosion of the anonymous (and perpetual!) trusts in South Dakota.

The basic bedrock of kleptocracy.

3) The dearth of funding for investigators and law enforcement tracking these oligarchic networks.

FinCEN needs magnitudes more expansion and funding. (As does the IRS.) Otherwise existing anti-money laundering laws are worthless.

And that's just the start.

And who's helping hide these Russian oligarchic finances? Americans. American enablers, across the board.

Especially American lawyers and law firms. https://t.co/3fx7kMx4YC

And this is hardly limited to just *Russian* oligarchs. This is true of Azeri and Kazakh and Uzbek oligarchs. This is true of crooked Nigerian and Cameroonian and Venezuelan etc figures.

This is also true of the pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs who pillaged Ukraine for *years*.

There’s a belief US (or other) investigators have a good idea where oligarchic wealth is held.

They don’t. At all. Primarily because of lack of funding.

They are looking for needles in haystacks, in the dark, with both hands tied behind their backs.

https://t.co/ePqU8cXG65