LAUNDERING OF GANG DRUG CASH TARGETED

The local drug czar's office will receive a $2 million boost in its budget
to help break the link between street gangs' illegal drug trade and
money-laundering schemes, federal officials will announce today.

The increase in the Chicago High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area's budget
comes after a Chicago Sun-Times investigation in April spotlighted the
dominance of street gangs in illegal drug trafficking and their growing
sophistication at hiding and laundering their money in businesses, casinos
and other enterprises.

The group, which works with 42 law enforcement agencies in Illinois to
investigate drug enterprises, will team up with the Organized Crime and
Drug Enforcement Task Force of the Justice Department and the Treasury
Department's High Intensity Financial Crimes Area program to focus on money
laundering, U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R- Ill.) said.

"Law enforcement has traditionally treated drug dealing and money
laundering as separate issues, but we know they are very much linked,"
Hastert said.

The $2 million pushes the group's budget to $7.4 million. The money from
the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy will be used to beef
up intelligence-gathering on the gangs that control major drug markets in
the city, including those that run the heroin trade on the West Side, said
Tom Donahue, executive director of the Chicago drug trafficking unit.
Chicago is a major hub for heroin distribution nationwide.

Donahue's group has worked with law enforcement, including the Cook County
state's attorney's office, Chicago police and the Cook County sheriff's
office, to build money-laundering cases against gangs.

The Sun-Times detailed how gang-connected drug dealers funneled millions
into businesses such as TCR&R, an Oak Park-based recording studio, and
showed how another record producer who was later convicted of murder
supplied the largest local gangs--the Gangsters Disciples and Vice
Lords--with more than 6,600 pounds of cocaine over eight years.

Hastert and Donahue credited the Sun-Times series with focusing attention
on the money-laundering aspect of the drug trade, a strategy not commonly
used until recently. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, cutting the
link between illegal drug sales and terror groups who can use the money to
fund their attacks is a major concern, Hastert said.

"The Sun-Times series provided an important public service by clearly
explaining the money laundering that goes on within illegal drug
operations," Hastert said. "It helped people understand that in order to
truly stop the flow of drugs, we need to broaden how we look at the drug
trade and focus on the money involved."