'The trove of documents indicates that over the period from 1999 to 2017 global banks moved more than $2 trillion in payments they believed were suspicious, raising questions about whether financial institutions and governments are doing enough to stop illicit money flows.
The documents show how major banks, including JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, helped criminal networks around the world move and hide money.
The FinCEN documents consist of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARS). Banks file SARS with FinCEN when they have concerns about the legality of a transaction.
It represents at least the fifth major leak over the past six years exposing the depth of global corruption.
In half of the FinCEN reports, the banks didn’t have information about one or more entities behind the transactions, raising concerns about lax enforcement by financial institutions.
The U.S. and other governments have passed legislation in recent years that puts more pressure on banks to clamp down on illicit flows or face hefty fines.
Global banks filed more than 2 million SARS last year. FinCEN, which has 333 employees, is understaffed and underfunded for the fight against corruption, analysts have said.
The news organizations working on the FinCEN documents plan to publish more stories in the coming days about who else was behind suspicious financial flows.
The FinCEN dump is the latest breach of secretive global financial records since the 2017 leak of documents from Appleby and Estera, two offshore legal and corporate service providers.'
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Kremlin Insider Laundered Millions Of Dollars Through Barclays After Sanctions, Report Shows, September 21, 2020
Context'..effective counter-intelligence services, proper oversight over the flow of funds and serious policing of corruption at home, media awareness for a new generation of citizens .. to increase the effectiveness .. of existing political structures.'