Brown, Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Leaders Discuss Brown’s New Law to Crack Down on Fentanyl Traffickers

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and local law enforcement leaders from the Mahoning Valley discussed the year-long effort to get his legislation to crack down on fentanyl traffickers in China and Mexico signed into law. The FEND Off Fentanyl Actpassed the House and the Senate as part of the bipartisan national security package, and was signed into law on Wednesday. Brown joined local Mahoning Valley leaders last July to call for the passage of this bill.

Brown's legislation is a sanctions and anti-money laundering bill aimed at combating the country's fentanyl crisis and saving lives in Ohio by targeting the illicit fentanyl supply chain, from the chemical suppliers in China to the cartels that transport the drugs in from Mexico. Senator Brown worked with law enforcement to craft the legislation, and national and Ohio law enforcementpraised the bill's passage last week.

The prevalence of dangerous forms of fentanyl, often mixed with other substances, is a serious public health threat to Ohio communities. In 2022, fentanyl was involved in 80% of unintentional drug overdose deaths in Ohio.

"Local law enforcement, first responders, and prosecutors encounter fentanyl far too often. We worked with them and with national law enforcement to write this bill to help stop fentanyl at the source, before it ever reaches our communities. We built a broad, bipartisan coalition to get this vital legislation passed, and after a year of work, we got it done. This will allow us to target the entire fentanyl supply chain, from the chemical suppliers in China to the cartels that traffic the drug from Mexico," said Brown.

Background:

The FEND Off Fentanyl Act is a sanctions and anti-money laundering bill to help combat the country's fentanyl crisis by targeting opioid traffickers devastating Ohio communities. The bill will enhance current law so U.S. government agencies can more effectively disrupt illicit opioid supply chains and penalize those facilitating the trafficking of fentanyl. The bill also ensures that sanctions are imposed not only on the illicit drug trade, but also on the money laundering that makes it profitable.

Specifically, the legislation will:

• Declare that the international trafficking of fentanyl is a national emergency.

• Require the President to sanction transnational criminal organizations and drug cartels' key members engaged in international fentanyl trafficking.

• Enable the President to use proceeds of forfeited, sanctioned property of fentanyl traffickers to further law enforcement efforts.

• Enhance the ability to enforce sanctions violations thereby making it more likely that people who defy U.S. law will be caught and prosecuted.

• Require the administration to report to Congress on actions the U.S. government is taking to reduce the international trafficking of fentanyl and related opioids.

• Allow the Treasury Department to utilize special measures to combat fentanyl-related money laundering.

• Require the Treasury Department to prioritize fentanyl-related suspicious transactions and include descriptions of drug cartels' financing actions in Suspicious Activity Reports.

More information about the bill can be found here, bill text can be found here.

Senator Brown's Work to Combat Fentanyl:

Brown has a long history of leadership in fighting to stop the flow of fentanyl into Ohio's communities. In addition to his bipartisan FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which imposes new sanctions and anti-money laundering penalties targeting the illicit fentanyl supply chain, Brown also is pushing to pass his bipartisan Providing Officers with Electronic Resources (POWER) Act. The POWER Act would establish a new grant program through the U.S. Department of Justice to help state and local law enforcement organizations secure high-tech, portable drug screening devices. This legislation builds off Brown's INTERDICT Act, which President Trump signed into law and which provides U.S. Customs and Border Protection with high-tech screening equipment and lab resources to detect fentanyl before it enters the U.S.

Brown introduced the bipartisan Protecting First Responders from Secondary Exposure Act which would allow state and local governments to purchase containment devices to safely store dangerous drugs and preserve them for evidentiary use, and provide first responders training to reduce their risk of secondary exposure to lethal substances. This work builds on his bipartisan PREVENT Act, which provides drug evidentiary containment devices for Border Patrol Officers and became law in 2022. He has also introduced the Stop Fentanyl at the Border Act, which would increase staffing and technology to detect illicit drugs and other contraband being smuggled through ports of entry or at illegal crossings along the border.

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