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Leak reveals $2tn of possibly corrupt US financial activity
Thousands of documents detailing $2 trillion (£1.55tn) of potentially corrupt transactions that were washed through the US financial system have been leaked to an international group of investigative journalists.
The leak focuses on more than 2,000 suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed with the US government's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
Banks and other financial institutions file SARs when they believe a client is using their services for potential criminal activity.
However, the filing of an SAR does not require the bank to cease doing business with the client in question.
The documents were provided to BuzzFeed News, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The documents are said to suggest major banks provided financial services to high-risk individuals from around the world, in some cases even after they had been placed under sanctions by the US government.
See also: FinCEN Files: All you need to know about the documents leak
FinCEN Files: Tory donor Lubov Chernukhin linked to $8m Putin ally funding
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday September 21 2020, @03:48PM (24 children)
When I worked in a bank, it was absolutely beaten into every employee's head regardless of whether they ever saw a customer, that reporting suspicious activity to the feds was mandatory. Including structured payments that weren't suspicious in and of themselves, but were just under the reportable numbers. Also not only does the law not force banks to stop working with a flagged entity, it mandates they not do so.
Huge databases of potential payers and payees who had to be watched, automatic flagging of transactions with certain characteristics.
To be honest, the fact that such a huge percentage of our national economy apparently "counts" as suspicious is as damning of our overbearing laws as anything else. It's like how RICO laws aren't used to grab mobsters anymore, but an excuse to up charges on political opponents. Maybe there's that much corruption, drug running, and laundering going on, but I bet it's mostly just "welp, this person is associated with someone who 'dealt' drugs one time, watch them for the rest of their life" totalitarianism.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Monday September 21 2020, @04:00PM (18 children)
Can't have a 2020 corruption story without the henchmen of the President being involved.
Banks first flagged Paul Manafort's activity as suspicious in 2012, the FinCEN files show [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 21 2020, @05:09PM (16 children)
I'm as partisan as anyone, but calling your opponents lackeys henchmen is about as unimaginatively transparent pre-spin as calling reporters' questions "nasty".
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday September 21 2020, @05:15PM (15 children)
Nope, it is simply the correct term to use to describe them.
hench·man
/ˈhen(t)SHmən/
Learn to pronounce
noun
DEROGATORY
a faithful follower or political supporter, especially one prepared to engage in crime or dishonest practices by way of service.
"the dictator's henchman"
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday September 21 2020, @05:34PM (14 children)
Republicans can merely afford to be more overt, and sloppy, without losing support. *Murder on 5th Avenue* is their platform. The "opposition" apparently has to tread more lightly to avoid tipping the entire apple cart and ruining everything.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday September 21 2020, @05:45PM (13 children)
Correct, we're not willing to commit the same crimes Trump committed in order to beat Trump.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by fustakrakich on Monday September 21 2020, @05:47PM (7 children)
:-) Just better at covering your tracks, with a better cleanup crew. The republicans don't have to care.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday September 21 2020, @05:48PM (5 children)
Ah yes, you have zero evidence to support your claim so therefore it is definitely true.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday September 21 2020, @06:01PM (4 children)
Eh, whatever, can't expect the cops to investigate themselves, certainly not for anything real that would snare them too. Just bullshit about emails (not even the good ones) and Russia, it's a well oiled machine. The cash flow is fantastic!
You really think this is all republicans? That's funny! I kinda remember eight years of democrats doing nothing, actually sixteen. A lot was happening during the Clinton admin too, going back to Reagan's Iran/Contra, just more turtles on the way down. A very old story, but timing is everything, right? It may flip a few votes
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @06:23PM (3 children)
Flip a few votes you say? I thought that was YOUR game.
Waaah waaaah people finally see I'm bullshit personified waaaahhhhhh. We have plenty of problems with corruption, but you do nothing to help and only tear down one party. Your occasional "Rs bad too" is just a thin veneer to try and maintain credibility.
Fuck off already, you drag this site down and that is truly saying something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @06:34PM (2 children)
bla bla bla... yeah, we all know you're a democrat
You are free to go... If we have any questions, we'll be in contact... thankyouverymuch
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @06:48PM (1 child)
Nice, fusty's canned AC response, love hitting a nerve with trolls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @10:47PM
:-) Yeah but, tomorrow you'll still be a democrat
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @07:28PM
:-) Here come the democrats! Regular as the sunrise... Now watch the magic!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @09:37PM (4 children)
So if "you" happen to beat Trump then what?
Now you have the Biden cartel to deal with. If Biden is now as brain
dead as he appears, then its pretty obvious someone else (likely not
elected) will run the show -- which may be the case for any of the two
party members. Great improvement there!!
So sad that the system cannot be seen for what it is:
Democrook vs Republocrook
Until the two headed monster gets taken out, there is no improvement.
...
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 21 2020, @11:59PM (3 children)
So the incumbent is portraying Biden as "brain dead", while simultaneously complaining that he must be cheating at town halls because he can provide coherent answers to questions posed to him by citizens while the incumbent can't. Now, which seems more likely:
A. Biden had access to all the questions ahead of time and was given a teleprompter script to read to answer them, all without anybody in the room being aware of that who wasn't supposed to and all without any leaks to anybody outside of the evil Democratic machine.
B. A person with a history of dishonesty with every reason to lie about Biden is lying about Biden, and Biden learned something in his decades in elected office about how to answer constituent questions.
Now, if Biden is elected is he going to have unelected people around him that will have a significant influence on policy? Absolutely. Just like the current guy does (e.g. Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner, and Bill Barr), just like every president before him has.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 22 2020, @10:41PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 23 2020, @04:47PM (1 child)
The reason I don't believe A happened isn't that it would be impossible to pull off, but because it would be difficult-to-impossible to keep everybody who knew it happened from saying something. Look at how many times other politicians (e.g. Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton) have been caught on camera speaking at what they thought were private events saying things they didn't want the public to hear.
As a very simple example, if you happened to be able to see into that room (you were emptying the trash, washing the windows, or something), and you saw a teleprompter giving Biden the answers, would you tell somebody? Of course you would. And so would enough other people that the odds of keeping the story under wraps is basically zero.
That's usually where conspiracies fail: It's not the making-something-happen stage, it's the stopping-everybody-from-talking stage.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 24 2020, @12:10PM
Well, how would you hear that?
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Monday September 21 2020, @06:43PM
Yeah, there's probably a trillion or two related to the executive branch. I'm not talking CIA selling crack either.
Here's a fun thing I did. I applied for an up to 10k pandemic grant from the SBA, since I have a small business for network consulting services. I also applied for PPP. I got the PPP, and I got 1k out of that 10k grant. You're only supposed to apply once through 1 bank for these - I applied at 5 places for each. Only one went through, because the other 4 banks didn't even bother submitting my application, and when the window was closed sent me a lying email saying the application was rejected by SBA, despite SBA never receiving it.
So, here's the funny thing. All these SBA assistance funds were directly paid into my account by the treasury. Not only that, despite these being SBA programs, SBA had no idea of approval status or payment - the Fed and treasury department did not notify SBA of anything related to approval or payment. They just distributed the newly printed money out of a black box with no oversight or transparency. I wonder how much of that congress-provided fund went into the pockets of people in key positions.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 21 2020, @04:09PM (3 children)
I wonder how many small businesses and restaurants would just fail if someone pressed a magic button that ended money laundering. Especially given the pandemic [archive.org]. You ever walk into a place and wonder how they keep the lights on?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday September 21 2020, @04:53PM (1 child)
Especially when they're a cash business [wreg.com], operating entirely legally and above-board.
If you want an analogous example for black-market cash, check out what India did when they pushed a similar button, declared the two largest banknotes in circulation as worthless, and gave 1.3E9 people 50 days to swap them for the new ones [cnn.com].
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday September 21 2020, @04:58PM
Dammit, I wish this had a 5-minute edit window. Apparently those two banknotes (500/1000 INR) comprise 86% of the banknotes in circulation [cnn.com] (by value rather than by count, I'm guessing).
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @06:36PM
"money laundering" is a bullshit "crime". What are they laundering money from? Stuff that is none of the fucking government's business anyways.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:31AM
Translated:
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Monday September 21 2020, @04:47PM (17 children)
So then, what's the next step?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday September 21 2020, @04:58PM (8 children)
Nothing, of course.
The ICIJ themselves are too much mainstream to believably pretend good people.
It's a well controlled operation again.
Selective targeting only, as usual.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by DeathMonkey on Monday September 21 2020, @05:51PM (7 children)
Trump's previous Campaign Manager is already in jail but we can tack on a few extra years if that'll make you happy.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday September 21 2020, @06:31PM (6 children)
Most funny part of the current affair is the UK, not the US. For one small example, ICIJ often attacks Chernukhin family as Putin's cronies, while they are actually Putin's great enemies.
I wonder who orchestrates this nonsense and for what purpose.
But on the financial aspect of the situation, UK banks desperately wanted all those money stolen from Russia by this family. However, guess who'll be blamed when Porton Down lab delivers next dose of "Now We Choke" to Vladimir Chernukhin to mop the past.
The situation with Trump is nearly identically inverted. By observations of what Pompeo actually does on diplomatic scene, it's hard to find anyone else who so deeply hates Putin more than Trump himself.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday September 21 2020, @06:50PM
Every last one of them are as crooked as can be. Is it even worth the effort to sort them out? Put them in a lobster cage and dump it overboard. Greece and Cyprus must fit in there somewhere.
It's all blood (mob) money. Now is probably the best time to zero all accounts and start over.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @06:56PM (2 children)
"By observations of what Pompeo actually does on diplomatic scene, it's hard to find anyone else who so deeply hates Putin more than Trump himself."
Well now we know you are just another propaganda puppet account. Was a little hard to tell for a while with your weirdly incoherent posts. Now we see, riding the japanese fandom wave to sow more bullshit.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday September 21 2020, @07:24PM
Hmm, a little Asian Flare to hide a lack of English skills....
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday September 21 2020, @09:28PM
It's another aspect of that whole "alternative facts" thing the American right started a few years ago.
If they say something for long enough, enough people start to believe it, and it becomes reality.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 21 2020, @07:33PM
Putin's actual cronies would be the obvious first choice.
All too obvious.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:34AM
Except that's not what the SARs say [bbc.com].
And for additional proof that Chernukhin isn't an enemy of Putin, he's still alive isn't he?
(Score: 3, Touché) by krishnoid on Monday September 21 2020, @05:15PM
This will create a vacuum, into which some of the remaining 30E12 (or whatever) of *definitely* corrupt financial activity can move into, slowly improving the situation. Or at least just rotating between [schlockmercenary.com] the "finance" and "white-collar crime" news cycle categories.
(Score: 2) by esperto123 on Monday September 21 2020, @05:50PM (1 child)
Hide it better!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 21 2020, @05:55PM
Double or nothing.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday September 21 2020, @06:45PM (4 children)
Government mandated digital currencies with a public distributed ledger will probably eliminate most tax evasion which is at the heart of most forms of major corruption. There will still be room for some shenanigans especially in small politics and such. But it will become exponentially harder the more money is involved.
compiling...
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday September 21 2020, @06:57PM (3 children)
Yeah, a simple power failure on all those XP machines will be a blast! I hope people just create their own scrip if the government mandates digital.
Really, all the crime is originating in those grand urban towers all over the world. Every one is a monument to corruption. Digitizing it just makes it easier to cook the books with a single keystroke.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:33PM (2 children)
That's why it needs to be a distributed public ledger: immutable and transparent transaction history means everyone can track every cent throughout its circulation and no one can make the transactions records disappear.
The source of the problem is that in order to stay competitive and increase efficiencies in mature industries, it's necessary centralize production chains and play around with monetary and fiscal policies at the expense of the people which ends up kickstarting the whole corruption-inequality cycle.
Now, what ledgers bring to the table is a "disarmament" of the worst & major tiers of financial corruption while leaving classic cronyism alone. Sovereign states will be able to recover lost tax revenues and stabilize their markets while still maintaining their maneuverability to compete. It will take decades to work out the kinks and will never fully resolve everything... But regardless, that's the next step to deal with corruption.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:53PM (1 child)
Once they force us to go all-digital, it will be one method of accounts handling for the 'common folk' and a separate one for the wealthy. The pie for the poor folk will just keep getting smaller, and the wealthy will eventually have it all, leaving us back as the indentured servants that eventually lead to slavery in the Americas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:44PM
That's exactly what you can't do if you have the ledger publicly distributed. In fact, what you're describing is the exact problem we're currently facing that the leak confirms: Banks are mishandling wealthy accounts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2020, @06:57PM
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/how-fincen-leak-came-to-haunt-banks-at-worst-time/articleshow/78242128.cms [indiatimes.com]
"HSBC’s shares reached a 25-year low on Monday. Standard Chartered fell 5% in London trading, while Barclays and Deutsche Bank shares declined more than 8%"
Someones who knew things beforehand, could pick up quite the sum on that drop, the actual content of the leak totally irrelevant as to press-mediated investor-scaring action.
Given that all that data consist only of what was duly reported by the banks to the govt anti-laundering arm to investigate to their hearts' content, from at least a few years up to two decades ago at that, suspect most/all impact will be a fast and furious stock-market action. However well hidden by journalistic eloquence, the fact remains that even Righteous Sanctions against Evil Russians do not work retroactively.