Over thousands of leaked documents from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network that were shared with hundreds of journalists reveal how some of the world’s biggest banks have been facilitating the movement of dirty money for years. The documents are part of a collection of files that belongs to FinCEN, an agency operating under the Treasury Department to detect and prevent financial crimes. The leak was first published by Buzzfeed and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). FinCEN is in charge of compiling SARs when it detects potential or evident financial crimes. Some of the largest banks such as JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, and Deutsche Bank, etc., engaged and facilitated the movement of illicit funds. The transactions are for over a period of almost two decades, from 2000 to 2017. Countries were concerned that this leak did not land them in the FATF Grey Countries List. The list, made by the Financial Action Task Force, focuses on jurisdictions that fail to comply with regulations pertaining to money laundering and terrorist financing.

What Does FinCEN do?

Here Are the Top Banks in Question

How long does it take banks to file a suspicious activity report?

Takeaways

2.4 Trillion in illicit funds are laundered each year, but authorities detect less than 1% of the world’s dirty money. (UNODC)

FinCEN files represent less than .002% of the more than 12 million suspicious activity reports that financial institutions filed with FinCEN between 2011 and 2017,

20% of clients had a common address to the British Virgin Islands – the world’s top offshore financial haven.

Source: Adeendren Iyan, GIMMEGAMMA