The Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigations division for the second straight year began fewer investigations and sought a smaller number of prosecutions for money laundering, terrorist financing and other financial crimes, the agency said Thursday.
A U.S. Treasury Department official told banking representatives at a recent roundtable meeting not to expect safe harbor protections for providing accounts to money services businesses, according to multiple sources.
The Internal Revenue Service must improve communication with financial institutions to detect and prevent criminals from using stolen social security and tax identification numbers to claim a tax refund, according to U.S. officials.
President Obama is expected to sign into law a measure that would allow the U.S. Treasury Department to rely on state examinations of nonbank financial institutions, including money services businesses.
Federal regulators are asking a greater number of community banks and credit unions to invest in automated transactional monitoring systems similar to those used by their larger counterparts, say consultants.
An IRS initiative granting state and municipal investigators access to a federal database of bank regulatory filings has helped law enforcement agencies reap hundreds of millions of dollars in forfeitures.
Looking for entrée into a financial market that has been reluctant to bank them, multiple Argentine money services businesses have applied for American accounts under false pretenses, say industry advisors.
A Mexican currency exchange house that registered with the U.S. Treasury Department manipulated currency declaration reports in efforts to launder tens of millions of dollars of drug profits, according to court documents.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service's criminal division will open more investigations into members of an anti-government group that refuse to pay income tax, according to a senior agency official.
The criminal division of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service will send representatives to two nations in an effort to better coordinate financial crime investigations, a senior agency official said Monday.
A soon-to-be introduced House bill could allow state financial examiners to better share the results of their money services businesses examinations with counterparts throughout the country.
Hundreds of money services businesses and other small financial institutions will miss the U.S. Treasury Department's June 30 deadline to file all of their anti-money laundering reports electronically, say sources.
When training agents working through money services businesses, compliance officials should take a creative, multimedia approach, said Anthony Rodriguez, global compliance officer at the Los Angeles-based Associated Foreign Exchange, Inc (AFEX).
A U.S. Treasury Department budget proposal to shift Bank Secrecy Act oversight duties from the IRS to state examiners could run into funding troubles from state agencies, say officials.
State prosecutors along the U.S.-Mexico border are studying whether drug traffickers are acting as subagents for Mexican banks that front payments on behalf of American money services businesses.
Dozens of small banks and credit unions have begun courting money services businesses over the past year, offering financial services to the high-risk clients in exchange for compliance-related fees.
A new U.S. Treasury Department plan to shift all regulatory reporting to electronic media will push some small money remitters along the U.S.-Mexico border to join the computer age, perhaps reluctantly.
The U.S. Treasury Department's financial intelligence unit will levy more enforcement actions against money services businesses that fail to register with the federal government, an official said Monday.
Money services businesses have been slow to respond to an April request by the U.S. Treasury Department to provide more data on their individual agents, say compliance professionals.