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Thousands of files were leaked from the United States Department of the Treasury containing reports from major banks related to anti-money laundering laws. It turned out that the big banks passed suspicious sums that could have come from corruption and other illegal activities without a hitch, and the reports on it were delivered only with a staggering delay.
Many major international banks have moved huge sums of money, presumably from crime, over the past two decades, despite stricter anti-money laundering regulations. This is revealed by their reports published on Sunday by American BuzzFeed and other media outlets. Much of the information released comes from leaks of reports submitted to US authorities, Reuters reported.
These reports are called SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports) that US banks and other financial companies are required to submit to the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crime Prevention Network (FinCEN). The approximately 2,100 SARs leaked were obtained by BuzzFeed and transmitted to the International Network of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), whose members include Direkt36.hu and Atlatszo.hu.
Classified as suspect
According to the ICIJ summary, the documents contain data on transactions completed in 1999 and 2017, totaling $ 2 billion (that is, $ 2 trillion). These transactions were classified as suspicious by the relevant departments of banks and financial institutions. Including a transaction in a RAS report does not necessarily mean that the transaction or the money it contains is illegal, and according to the ICIJ, leaked documents represent only a small proportion of the reports received by FinCEN.
The names of the top five international banks appeared most frequently in the archives, these are HSBC, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered and the Bank of New York Mellon They were. RAS reports would, in principle, be the main tools of the global system created to prevent money laundering and other financial crimes. However, according to most articles published on Sunday, this system is underfunded and overburdened, so huge sums of money from illegal activities can move smoothly through the international financial system.
More than a year instead of 60 days
Under current US regulations, a bank would initially have 60 days to submit a SAR report to the appropriate department of the US Department of the Treasury. In comparison, in more than one case, it took more than one year between the completion of the transaction and the report on it, according to ICIJ journalists.
Under SARs, banks have often transacted for companies registered in offshore havens such as the British Virgin Islands. All this even without knowing who the final owner of the account was. Competent staff at large banks have often used Google searches to find out who may be behind the transaction, according to the ICIJ.
Suspicious transactions at JPMorgan included those that allegedly involved the transfer of funds for corruption, including in Venezuela, Ukraine and Malaysia. A number of a pyramid scheme went through HSBC, and suspicious cash movements by a Ukrainian billionaire took place at Deutsche Bank.
It is dangerous for society as a whole
I hope that the outcome of the investigations will result in an immediate response from the decision makers and the necessary reforms are implemented. As noted in the document, the effects of financial crime go far beyond the financial sector and pose a threat to society as a whole, said Tim Tim, an international group of financial sector companies and banks called the Institute of International Finance. (IIF), he told the news agency. president of the association.
Shares of HSBC, StanChart, fell to a 22-year low in trading on Monday, with Deutshce Bank falling nearly 6 percent. The large banks that respond to the news agency tend to choose transactions found in the past, sacrificing huge sums and resources over the years to detect and prevent illegal transactions, and thirdly, always complying with current regulations.
And FinCen’s response stemmed from stating that unauthorized release of SAR reports is a crime affecting US national security.The US Department of the Treasury did not respond to the request.
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