In early 2006, a U.S. Attorney’s Office secured guilty pleas from two businesses for evading Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) reporting requirements by structuring deposits. The presiding judge sentenced the businesses to unsupervised probation, and as part of the agreement, the businesses agreed to…
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Upon receipt of a Suspicious Activity Report from a bank, the Federal Bureau of Investigation initiated a bank and mail/wire fraud investigation involving a purported charity raising money for needy people in a Middle Eastern country. The Suspicious Activity Report identified a series of checks…
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…
The Newark, New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney’s Office and the IRS utilized reports filed under the BSA to help build the largest Medicaid fraud case in the nation to date. This multi-agency investigation, also involving the FBI and the FDA, uncovered a New Jersey pharmacist who defrauded the Medicaid…
A retail store owner, who operated an unlicensed hawala (a form of an informal value transfer system), was sentenced to multiple months in prison and several years’ probation. The defendant pled guilty to failure to register as a money services business as required by FinCEN and to filing a…
In March 2002, as a result of a lead provided from a SAR, an investigation was initiated into an individual doing business as an unlicensed money remitter. The funds were being wired to a bank account in Jordan.
In October 2002, U.S. Customs agents executed a search warrant on three…
A SAR filing by a credit union in Rapid City, South Dakota was instrumental in uncovering a massive scheme by individuals to embezzle approximately $2.7 million from a South Dakota College. The investigation was conducted by IRS-CID, FBI, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of…
An investigation of a possible violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act was initiated following the filing of a SAR by a bank in New York. The SAR stated that an unnamed bank vice president in charge of the funds transfer program manipulated four payments to the Sudan…
Case one. A multi-agency investigation of several subjects engaged in a Ponzi scheme, in which 5,000 investors were defrauded of $67 million, was aided by the filing of a SAR by a financial institution in Hawaii. Proceeds of the scheme were deposited into numerous accounts at various business…
An investigation into the exportation of stolen merchandise exposed that the defendant was using a check kiting scheme to defraud local area banks resulting in losses exceeding $50,000. Subsequent to the defendant’s bond hearing, the defendant fled the jurisdiction and continued to engage in…