U.S. Attorney General Shifts Focus from White Collar Crime Toward Fighting Transnational Criminal Organizations and Cartels

On February 5, 2025, the newly sworn-in Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memorandum with the subject Total Elimination of Cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations. Attorney General Bondi’s memorandum lays out four distinct avenues to achieve President Trump’s stated policy of eliminating TCOs and Cartels.[1]  These include changing DOJ charging priorities, “removing bureaucratic impediments to aggressive prosecutions,” expanding certain task forces related to TCOs and Cartels, and advocating for certain legislative changes. 

In the section of the memorandum titled “Removing Bureaucratic Impediments to Aggressive Prosecutions,” Attorney General Bondi directs a number of changes to be implemented for a period of 90 days, which may be later renewed or made permanent. These include key changes to two major components of DOJ’s Criminal Division, the Fraud Section’s FCPA Unit and MLARS, demonstrating a significant shift away from white collar enforcement in favor of enforcement of violent and drug crimes.

1. FCPA

   Attorney General Bondi’s memorandum directs DOJ’s FCPA Unit to focus on cases involving TCOs and Cartels, while shifting focus away from “investigations and cases that do not involve such a connection.” As described by Attorney General Bondi, cases involving TCOs and Cartels relate to “human smuggling and the trafficking of narcotics and firearms,” which are stated priorities of the Trump administration. Such cases would fall outside the typical white collar matters historically pursued by the Fraud Section and the FCPA Unit.  

   A longstanding provision of the Justice Manual previously gave the Fraud Section’s FCPA Unit exclusive authority over investigating and prosecuting FCPA violations. The memorandum suspends this requirement for all matters relating to foreign bribery associated with TCOs and Cartels. Under the new policy, U.S. Attorney’s Offices need no approval to open these types of cases and merely must give the FCPA Unit 24-hours’ advance notice of the intention to seek charges in these matters. Sole authority over FCPA investigations and prosecutions not relating to bribery associated with Cartels and TCOs appears to remain confined to the Fraud Section’s FCPA Unit. 

2. MLARS

   Similarly, Attorney General Bondi’s memorandum directs MLARS to prioritize investigations, prosecutions, and asset forfeiture actions that target activities of TCOs and Cartels. Additionally, the memorandum disbands Task Force KleptoCapture, the Department's Kleptocracy Team, and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative.  The memorandum directs former members of these teams to return to their prior posts to focus on TCO and Cartel related work.

   In the past, the kleptocracy groups within MLARS have worked on recovering assets from large kleptocracy related cases, including the 1MDB case. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the creation of Task Force KleptoCapture in 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to target Russian oligarchs.[2] As with the changes regarding the FCPA Unit, these changes highlight the new administration’s priorities.

3. Conclusion

   Taken together, the directive for the FCPA Unit and MLARS to focus on cases involving TCOs and Cartels, the new ability for U.S. Attorney’s offices to initiate these prosecutions, and the disbanding of the Kleptocracy Team and KleptoCapture efforts, mark a clear shift in enforcement priorities away from the Biden administration’s goal of rooting out international corporate crime to President Trump’s stated goals of eliminating TCOs and Cartels. (For more insight about the previous administrations focus on corporate crime, please refer to our previous client alerts here and here.)

   Tellingly, however, the memorandum is currently limited in time to 90 days and does not remove the Fraud Section’s exclusive jurisdiction over more traditional FCPA investigations and prosecutions. Nor does it require the FCPA Unit to fully stop working on matters not related to bribery associated with Cartels and TCOs. The FCPA Unit continues to pursue active and ongoing investigations as well as cases already under indictment. While prioritizing TCO and Cartel related cases in the immediate future, investigative steps regarding more traditional FCPA cases are unlikely to cease and the FCPA Unit will be keen to return to those matters after assisting the Department meet the President’s immediate goals. 

   President Trump and Attorney General Bondi have made the administration’s priorities clear and it is likely that future resources will continue to be allocated towards those goals and diverted away from white collar and FCPA enforcement. While this shifting of resources is a marked change for the DOJ, white collar enforcement will continue. Companies take on considerable risk if reading too broadly into the most recent memorandum and should continue to expect enforcement of the FCPA and white collar cases in both the near and long term.