The recent joint effort between the U.S. and Mexico in the arrest of Sinaloa Cartel head Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman can be seen as a sign of renewed cooperation between investigators in both countries after a yearlong lull.
In internal reviews and an ongoing criminal and regulatory investigation, Citigroup employees and Mexican officials have privately voiced concerns that drug traffickers may have infiltrated Banamex's anti-money laundering department, say sources.
A U.S. program supplementing Mexico’s efforts to clamp down on drug trafficking and money laundering should be extended for years to come, American investigators say.
Armed resistance by militia groups to Mexico's violent drug cartels will complicate the efforts of bankers charged with following anti-money laundering laws, whatever their sympathies, say industry consultants.
Mexican officials will extend until February an upcoming deadline for nonbank companies to implement anti-money laundering controls, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
An agreement formalizing cooperation between a Mexican financial regulator and a U.S. overseer of money services businesses and banks is likely to result in more enforcement actions in both countries.
Money launderers working on behalf of Mexican cartels have moved southward after a deferred prosecution agreement between Western Union and Arizona gave investigators unprecedented access to remittance data in Northern Mexico, according to Vince Piano.
Bank compliance staff should better scrutinize clients tied to Central America and Mexico's cattle industry following a spate of related U.S. sanctions, say current and former officials.
Plans to attract foreign capital and expertise to Mexico's oil sector could give organized crime groups and corrupt officials an opportunity to layer and integrate dirty money, say industry analysts.
A measure that will impose anti-money laundering program requirements on a broad range of non-bank businesses and professions in Mexico will take effect next month, according to a notice published Friday in the country's official journal.
Without the threat of larger monetary settlements or prosecutions, financial institutions have little economic incentive to seriously enforce their anti-money laundering compliance controls, according to Peter Reuter, a professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland.
U.S. lawmakers may need to earmark more money for Mexico's financial intelligence unit as part of a $1.9 billion aid package intended to help fight drug trafficking, a federal official said Thursday.
Trade-based schemes and bulk cash smuggling are among the most common tactics used by international money launderers, according to Joseph Gallion, the deputy assistant director of the Financial, Narcotics and Special Operations Division for the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Changes to the final version of Mexico's new anti-money laundering law leave important gaps in the nation's compliance regime, and may elicit criticism from an intergovernmental policymaker, say analysts.
When the DOJ accused 14 in June of washing Mexican cartel money via a horse racing operation, it signified a rare feat in the drug war: a prosecution built solely on money laundering charges. Despite years of trying to choke the cash networks of Mexicans drug gangs, such cases remain the exception.
Personally letting law enforcement agents know about clients' questionable activity can be crucial to identifying money launderers, according to Hector Colon, unit chief of the Illicit Finance and Proceeds of Crime Unit of Homeland Security Investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Federal examiners have asked at least a dozen banks along the U.S.-Mexico border to file suspicious activity reports even for relatively small transactions deemed only to be "unusual," say compliance professionals.
Mexican cartel members are exploiting mirror accounts in the United States and Mexico to launder money and evade U.S. dollar deposit restrictions, financial regulators said Thursday.
Securities transactions are increasingly being used by South American drug traffickers to launder illicit proceeds, says Manny Muriel, an attaché in the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Bogota, Colombia office.
Lax regulatory oversight of offshore financial centers and banks in developed countries is facilitating illicit financial activity in India, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group said Wednesday.