Federal prosecutors should be “banging the drum the loudest” to get banks more involved in the nascent cannabis industry, providing visibility and transparency that would help expose any illicit activity, said a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who’d helped draft guidance for financial crimes related to state legalization of marijuana.

The integration of marijuana businesses into the mainstream financial system would effectively deputize banks to help sniff out money laundering and other illegal activity within the industry, said John Vardaman, now the general counsel to Hypur, an Arizona-based electronic payments and banking compliance software company that helps financial institutions serve state-legal marijuana businesses.

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]