A Federal judge sentenced the owners of a tribal tobacco shop to probation and community service, and ordered to them pay almost $10,000,000 in restitution, for conspiring to traffic in contraband cigarettes and for structuring currency transactions. The defendants earlier pleaded guilty in…
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Investigators looking into a large-scale international marijuana smuggling and money laundering operation received a break when two banks filed SARs on the targets. One bank filed SARs on structured deposits into a business account that held proceeds of the illegal operation. A second bank filed…
In early 2012, FinCEN conducted outreach to all of its state and local law enforcement partners, and asked for cases where FinCEN data played a useful role in their investigations. Below, in their own words, is an example of how FinCEN's stakeholders use FinCEN data. It has been edited only for…
In May 2000, a federal jury convicted an individual from Norwood, Massachusetts, on two counts of money laundering believed to be the proceeds of narcotic sales. At the time of the offense, the individual worked at a Brockton, Massachusetts check cashing business. In May 1998, an undercover…
In early February 2002, money-transfer agents in 14 states were raided by federal agents to stop alleged illegal wiring of millions of dollars to Iraq. Twenty-nine (29) search warrants on businesses and individuals were used, allowing law enforcement agents to seize documents and records. The…
A business owner who ran a pharmaceutical business that defrauded drug manufacturers was sentenced to nearly two years in prison, three months of supervised probation and ordered to make restitution of $513,369.40. The sentence resulted from a guilty plea to one felony count each for conspiracy…
In what a federal prosecutor called “the most blatant currency structuring case” he had seen, a federal judge sentenced an 82-year-old man in March 2007 to 15 months in prison and ordered him to pay $110,000 in restitution to American victims of an international lottery scheme. The defendant had…
A proactive SAR review task force identified a record that described structuring in an account of an individual who was subsequently found to not be involved in the suspected criminal activity. The investigators began focusing on the subject who caused the structured transaction noted in the SAR…
Six defendants pled guilty and received prison time for defrauding investors in a case that started when a securities firm noticed suspect transactions and reported the activity to law enforcement. The defendants created a bogus investment scheme, marketed it over the Internet, and defrauded…
In early 2012, FinCEN conducted outreach to all of its state and local law enforcement partners, and asked for cases where FinCEN data played a useful role in their investigations. Below, in their own words, is an example of how FinCEN's stakeholders use FinCEN data. It has been edited only for…