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Sunday 20 September 2020
Confidential documents from the United States Department of the Treasury reveal significant problems in the fight against international money laundering. According to a network of journalists, the documents show that many major banks do business with suspected criminals. Despite strict regulations.
According to an investigation by a network of journalists, there are still considerable deficits in the fight against international money laundering. Consequently, information revealed overnight from a data breach by the U.S. Treasury Department reveals that banks around the world have been doing business with high-risk clients for years and Despite strict regulations, they have accepted suspected criminals as clients and made transfers worth billions of dollars for them. According to the information, they sometimes reported these processes very hesitantly and sometimes years late.
This is the result of a joint investigation by various media partners, which was published under the name “FinCEN-Files”. The US online media Buzzfeed News shared the documents with the journalist network ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists).
According to the information, 110 outlets from 88 countries participated in the investigation, including NDR, WDR, “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and Buzzfeed News in Germany. According to the media involved, the “FinCEN files” contain more than 2,100 reports of suspicious transactions from 2000 to 2017. The total amount of transactions is around two trillion dollars, currently 1.69 trillion euros.
“The American Financial System as a Global Money Laundering Engine Room”
The tax justice network, which for years has pointed out abuses in the fight against international money laundering, was not very surprised by the deficits revealed. The data leak offers “a shocking insight into the central role of the US financial system as a machine room for global money laundering,” said Markus Meinzer of the German news agency network. The United States came in ignominious second place after the Cayman Islands in the shadow financial index. “To improve, the United States would eventually have to switch to exchanging fiscal data with the rest of the world. Europe and Germany must insist on that.”
But there are still many problems in Germany. “After the Cum-Ex and Wirecard scandals, it should have been clear to everyone: the German financial supervisory authority Bafin fails too often and it must fundamentally rethink and rebuild,” demanded Meinzer. “When organized crime infiltrates the economy and kleptocrats loot their states with the help of Western banks, freedom and democracy are threatened everywhere.” The rule of law must finally take it seriously and punish money laundering seriously.
Germany currently plays a key role in the international fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. Because in July Germany assumed the presidency of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for two years through the Federal Ministry of Finance. According to the Ministry of Finance, it is an international institution in which the governments of 37 member states work together, as well as the European Commission and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
