STOP DEALERS FROM LAUGHING TO BANK

"Follow the money.'' That advice--given 30 years ago to reporters
tracking Watergate--holds true today. Witnesses can be intimidated
and evidence hidden. But moneyis different. Criminals want to keep
the money--that's the point of crime--and in doing so, in converting
stacks of cokey $10 bills into fat bank accounts, they blaze a trail
of evidence straight back toward their misdeeds. Provided anyone
bothers to follow the trail. Traditionally, local law enforcement
left tracking cash to the feds. Local police were too preoccupied
with the fallout of the drug trade--the drive-by shootings, the
street corner peddlers--to go after the river of capital flowing to
and from the drug trade.

That is beginning to change, as was so grippingly laid out earlier
this week by the Sun-Times investigative team of Carlos Sadovi and
Frank Main. The Cook County state's attorney, frustrated by the
failure of countless convictions to destroy Chicago's dope-peddling
gangs, has turned its attention to drug money and legitimate
businesses that launder drug profits, acting as a key filter between
street crime and the instantaneous, hard-to-trace digital world of
international finance.

More needs to be done. The Cook County effort is both overdue and
minimal--based on a single 18-month grant that runs out next year.
The law also needs upgrading. House-passed legislation that reached
the state Senate Tuesday would make money laundering in excess of
$500,000 a Class X felony. But that is still only the beginning. The
money- laundering statutes now on the books were rarely used. Drug
abuse is a hydra-headed social ill, and money laundering is one of
the key snakes--along with addiction, smuggling, street crime and
gang leadership--that must be vigorously attacked if any progress is
to be made.