FinCEN Files Leak in a Nutshell

[mlawson71]

The global finance world got struck by yet another major scandal – over 2000 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) got leaked from FinCEN, which is the American Financial Crimes Enforcement Network database.

FinCEN is tasked with combatting financial crimes and banks around the world are supposed to file SARs when there is a suspicious transaction of USD.

The leaked reports however (2121 of them) implicate world famous banks in transferring funds without complying with Know Your Customer (KYC) policies. For example, HSBC transferred millions to an account that they were warned it was a part of a Ponzi scheme.

Another example is JP Morgan moving 1 billion (1,000,000,000) USD for a company without knowing who actually owned that enormous sum. Later it was discovered that the owner was wanted by the FBI.

Another thing that stands out is that the majority of the banks engaging in such activities are situated in the UK and FinCEN called the country a high-risk jurisdiction due to all the money laundering that takes place there.

Source

I wonder why a lot of the big offenders are UK banks. What are your theories?