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The FinCEN Files Show Banks Don’t Actually Care About Stopping Money Laundering
The massive leak of suspicious activity reports shows how banks let the government know about likely money laundering, then go right on providing services.
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 9:58 a.m. Published Sep 21, 2020, 7:00 p.m.
The massive leak of suspicious activity reports shows how banks let the government know about likely money laundering, then go right on providing services.
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This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.
Today on the Brief:
- Stocks down, dollar up on COVID-19 resurgence fears
- People’s Bank of China says digital yuan needed to fight USD dominance
- 140,000 have claimed UNI tokens
- Judge stops Trump WeChat ban
- Nikola founder resigns
Our main discussion: The FinCEN Files
The FinCEN Files are a leaked cache of suspicious activity reports filed by banks with the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The more than 2,000 files, representing $2 trillion in transactions, were leaked to BuzzFeed News more than a year ago. BuzzFeed, in turn, shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who then helped distribute them to 108 publications in 88 countries.
This episode provides an overview of the leaks and explains why they show that, despite lots of PR bluster, banks are happy to file their reports and then keep on banking likely money launderers.
See also: FinCEN Files: BNY Mellon Processed $137M for Entities Linked to OneCoin
For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Stitcher, RadioPublica, iHeartRadio or RSS.
Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.
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