The FinCEN Files consist of more than 2,600 files, of which more than 2,100 are SARs,that banks sent to the US authorities between 2000 and 2017.earlier. The purpose of SARs is to require financial institutions to detect and report possible money laundering and other suspicious activities.These documents are some of the international banking system’s most closely guarded secrets. They were leaked to Buzzfeed News and shared with a group that brings together investigative journalists from around the world, which distributed them to 108 news organisations in 88 countries.
THE SARS DETAILED MORE THAN $2 TRILLION IN SUSPICIOUS TRANSACTIONS IN NEARLY EVERY CORNER OF THE GLOBE, WITH REPORTERS LINKING FLOWS OF MONEY TO TERROR GROUPS, DRUG KINGPINS, AND KLEPTOCRATS.
Following are some of the financial crimes and notorious people that came to light due to the leak.
Deutsche Bank moved money launderer’s dirty money for organised crime,terrorists and drug traffickers.
Standard Chartered moved cash for Arab Bank for more than a decade after clients’ accounts at the Jordanian bank had been used in funding terrorism.
HSBC allowed fraudsters to move millions of dollars of stolen money around the world, even after it learned from US investigators the scheme was a scam,
JP Morgan allowed a company to move more than $1bn through a London account without knowing who owned it. The bank later discovered the company might be owned by a mobster on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list.
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich once held secret investments in footballers not owned by his club through an offshore company.
Evidence that one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest associates used Barclays bank in London to avoid sanctions which were meant to stop him using financial services in the West. Some of the cash was used to buy works of art.
The United Arab Emirates’ central bank failed to act on warnings about a local firm which was helping Iran evade sanctions.
The UK is called a “higher risk jurisdiction” and compared to Cyprus, by the intelligence division of FinCEN. That’s because of the number of UK registered companies that appear in the SARs. Over 3,000 UK companies are named in the FinCEN files – more than any other country.
Actions taken after FINCEN
British lawmakers launched a formal inquiry into the “deeply troubling” questions raised in the FinCEN Files.-
The Bank Policy Institute issued a statement, supported by ads on social media, attempting to throw cold water on the significance of the FinCEN Files.
Activists in Niger submitted a FinCEN Files story as part of a ground breaking lawsuit seeking to force the government to open a corruption investigation into $120 million that an official audit said went missing.
Politicians called for uniform regulations and stronger supervision in the form of a new oversight agency.
In Turkey, a court blocked the publication of multiple FinCEN Files stories.
Similar cases like FINCEN
2017 Paradise Papers – A huge batch of leaked documents from an offshore legal service provider Appleby and corporate services provider Estera.They revealed the offshore financial dealings of politicians, celebrities and business leaders.
2016 Panama Papers – Leaked documents from the law firm Mossack Fonseca showed more about how wealthy people were using offshore tax regimes to their benefit.
2015 Swiss Leaks – Documents from HSBC’s Swiss private bank showed how it was using the country’s banking secrecy laws to help clients avoid paying tax.
2014 LuxLeaks contained documents from the accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers showing that big companies were using tax deals in Luxembourg to reduce the amount they were having to pay.
Reference & Credit:
1.https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/
2.news.bloomberglaw.com/bloomberg-law-analysis/analysis-the-fincen-files-third-leak-in-three-years-1
3.www.bbc.com/news/uk-54226107 4.https://media.icij.org/uploads/2020/09/FinCEN_Files_ICIJ_1920px.jpg
About the Summary writer
Viswa Teja Bapireddy is an intern with Crossbar Financial Crime Academy. A young, enthusiastic student of Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Viswa Teja is specially passionate about the Financial Crime Compliance Domain and likes reading, researching writing and sharing blogs / stories in this domain.