Money laundering fuels everything from terror finance and sanctions evasion to human trafficking and corruption. However, experts warn that our anti-money laundering efforts are on the brink of failure, as law enforcement only interdicts less than one-half of one percent of the trillions of dollars laundered each year. We need a new approach to addressing money laundering and the dangerous threats to our safety and security from the crimes funded through illicit finance.
Statement by the FACT Coalition on Treasury Department Decision to Renew and Expand Geographic Targeting Orders to Identify Buyers in Luxury Real Estate
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department, announced Tuesday that it was renewing and expanding its temporary orders seeking to uncover illicit activity in the luxury real estate sector.
The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition (FACT Coalition) joined 43 other organizations to send a letter to Sens. Whitehouse, Grassley, and Feinstein supporting the True Incorporation Transparency for Law Enforcement (TITLE) Act [S. 1454], which would require companies to disclose information about the real people who own or control them (often called the “beneficial owners”) at the time they are created.
This week marks the anniversary of the Panama Papers, a leak of more than 11 million documents exposing widespread corruption and illicit financing involving 140 public officials in more than 50 countries around the globe. The leak, large as it was, included documents from just one law firm and had reverberations worldwide. The impact was profound, but was it enough? And what did we learn?
For those not steeped in money laundering practices and illicit financial flows, the Panama Papers showed the world how it all works. If you want to finance terror; steal from taxpayers; traffic in humans, weapons, or drugs; or evade taxes, anonymous shell companies are the vehicle of choice. The Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca showed that these entities were easy to set up, inexpensive to maintain, and able to provide legal secrecy even if covering up underlying illegal activity.
Statement by the FACT Coalition on Treasury’s Decision to Renew Geographic Targeting Orders to Identify Buyers in Luxury Real Estate
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department, announced that it was renewing its temporary orders seeking to uncover illicit activity in the luxury real estate sector.
This week, The Clearing House Association, a major trade association for U.S. commercial banks, endorsed legislation requiring the collection of information about the real owners of U.S. companies (S. 2489/H.R. 4450). The Clearing House Association is the oldest banking association in the U.S., and it advocates on behalf of the largest U.S. commercial banks, such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo and SunTrust, just to name a few.
Their letter states, “We believe the bill would assist public sector efforts to identify money laundering and terrorist financing through the disclosure of the beneficial owners of corporations. In addition, the legislation would bring the United States further in line with international AML/CFT expectations, such as the recommendations developed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). We can see no justification for allowing corporations to shield their ownership.”
The FACT Coalition along with 10 other organizations filed a comment on April 4, 2016 with the Department of the Treasury to finalize the proposed rule issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to impose anti-money laundering and suspicious activity reporting requirements on registered investment advisers. The full letter can be read below or downloaded here.
