FinCENFiles: Data Leak Reveals World Big Banks Allowed Criminals to Launder Money and Russian Oligarchs to Escape Sanctions

September 20, 10:16 pm

This material is also available in Ukrainian.

Buzzfeednews investigated transaction data of $ 2 trillion (Photo: screenshot (buzzfeednews))

What is FinCEN and what files did Buzzfeednews investigate?

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, is the office of the United States Department of the Treasury that collects «suspicious financial transactions ”of bank customers. Suspicious transactions made in US dollars must be submitted to FinCEN, even if they took place outside the United States, explains the BBC.

If such suspicions are recorded, a suspicious activity report is prepared (Suspicious activity reports or SAR). These reports are completed by banks if they are concerned about the activities of one of their clients and send them to the authorities.

These are classified documents of the international banking system. Banks use them to report suspicious behavior, but they are not evidence of wrongdoing or crime.

Such a data collection system should help combat financial crime and stop money laundering. “Dirty” money, that is, money earned from crime (corruption, drug traffic etc.). The same process is needed to ensure that the Russian oligarch, against whom Western countries have adopted sanctions, cannot transfer his money to the West.

Banks must ensure that they do not help clients launder money or move money in a way that violates the rules. By law, they must know who their customers are; It is not enough to present the SAR and continue accepting dirty money from customers, waiting for the authorities to solve the problem. If banks have evidence of criminal activity, they should stop moving cash.

FinCEN’s archives are more than 2,500 documents, most of which were exactly the type of suspicious activity reports that banks sent to US authorities between 2000 and 2017.

The documents were leaked to Buzzfeed News, which shared them with a group of investigative journalists around the world. The documents were distributed to 108 news organizations in 88 countries. Hundreds of journalists leafed through dense technical documentation, revealing some of the activities that banks would prefer to hide from the public.

As Fergus Shieli of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists noted (ICIJ) this data leak gives «an idea of ​​what exactly the banks know about the huge flows of dirty money around the world. “

This raises the question of why the banks that noticed this suspicious activity did not always respond. And can the United States and the other countries in which these banks operate?

What did this data leak reveal?

• HSBC allowed scammers to move millions of stolen dollars around the world, even after learning from US investigators that the scheme was a scam.
• The US financial holding JP Morgan, which unites several large banks, allowed the company to move more than a billion dollars through an account in London without knowing who it belongs to. Later, the bank found out that the company might be owned by the FBI’s 10 most wanted mobsters.
• One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest associates used the Barclays Bank in London to avoid sanctions that should have prevented him from using financial services in the West. Part of the money was used to buy works of art.
• There are a large number of UK registered companies that have been featured in suspicious activity reports. There are more than 3,000 UK companies on FinCEN’s archives, more than any other country.
• The UAE central bank did not respond to warnings about a local company that helped Iran evade sanctions.
• Deutsche Bank moved dirty money for organized crime, terrorists and drug traffickers.
• Standard Chartered has been transferring cash to an Arab bank for more than a decade after client accounts at a Jordanian bank were used to finance terrorism.

The banks mentioned in the story said they couldn’t comment on specific transactions due to bank secrecy laws, BuzzFeed News notes.

Data on Ukrainians entered the investigation?

As Ukrainian investigative journalist Tatiana Kozyreva, who participated in the decoding of #FinCENFiles, writes on Facebook, the names of Ukrainian officials, oligarchs and even presidents appear in FinCEN data that reached BuzzFeed News and ICIJ journalists.

“AND it is only a matter of time before the Justice Department files charges against those involved in the FinCEN reports, “says Kozyreva.

“Interesting, than Kolomoisky, when he received the last group of questions from me (in three pages), I just blocked my number. Perhaps, it touched a chill, “added the journalist.

“Lawyers Until recently, Akhmetov wrote and called my employers in the United States, made up stories about my incompetence and prejudice, and tried to persuade me not to publish the material. But the media in America are special. Editors value investigative journalists and respect their work, ”Kozyreva said.