Statement by Clark Gascoigne, Interim Executive Director of the FACT Coalition

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new investigation published Sunday by a global network of news outlets reveals major flaws in U.S. anti-money laundering safeguards.  Dubbed the “FinCEN Files,” the latest exposé from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Buzzfeed News spotlights trillions of dollars in dirty money flowing freely through major U.S. and international banks, with few repercussions for bad actors but serious ramifications for national security and public safety.

Clark Gascoigne, interim executive director of the FACT Coalition, issued the following statement:

“Nearly every national security and public safety threat that we face — from terror financing and sanctions evasion to the opioid crisis and human trafficking — is either motivated or facilitated by money.  The FinCEN Files reveal that the system we’ve established to follow that money is broken.

“It’s time to overhaul our anti-money laundering system and prioritize the fight against illicit finance.  That begins this fall by enacting bipartisan legislation to end the incorporation of anonymous shell companies in the National Defense Authorization Act.  But we must go farther, by exponentially increasing the staff and resources devoted to FinCEN, overhauling safeguards in the correspondent banking system, expanding anti-money laundering requirements to other gatekeepers to the financial system, and holding individual leaders at financial institutions personally accountable for facilitating financial crimes.”

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Notes to Editors:

• Click here to read the FinCEN Files series from ICIJ.
• Click here to read the FinCEN Files series from Buzzfeed.