The FinCEN Files Leak of 2020
Over the past few years, there have been multiple cases of leaked official documents. But this time around, the leak doesn’t just involve a few companies or individuals, but well-known reputable international banks including Standard Chartered, HSBC, and even JP Morgan.
The leaks revealed $2 Trillion worth of transactions of criminal and dirty money through the above-mentioned banks and more. There are over 2,500 documents, the majority of which are SARs sent by banks to the FinCEN between the years 2000 and 2017, and most of these include some of the financial world’s most closely-guarded secrets. The documents were originally leaked to BuzzFeed News, who posted about it first on September 20th, 2020 and later shared them with 108 news organizations from 88 countries around the globe.
Some of the banks named in the leaked documents are also actively functioning in Pakistan. Meanwhile, the major superpower countries involved in the criminal investigation include Russia, USA, Cyprus, UK, UAE, Iran, Germany, and Jordan.
FinCEN is the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the US Treasury that battles financial crimes involving US Dollars, whether they take place within the bounds of the USA or not. Information regarding dubious financial activities reach the FinCEN through SARs, or Suspicious Activity Reports that banks are required to file and send to FinCEN if and when they believe that a client of theirs might be involved in questionable circumstances.
Here are some of the summarised revelations made through the document leaks:
- British multinational holdings bank HSBC enabled fraudsters to make transactions worth millions of stolen money dollars across the world despite knowing the nature of the scheme.
- American multinational bank JP Morgan enabled an entire company to make transactions of over a billion dollars through a London account without knowledge of the accounts’ ownership. Later, they learned that the company’s ownership might lay with an FBI 10 Most Wanted mobster.
- One of the Russian President Putin’s close associates used the London branch of the British multinational bank Barclays to evade barriers set in place to prevent him from making transactions in the West, and eventually invested in artworks with the cash.
- A woman donated 1.7 million pounds to the UK’s Conservative Party, and it turns out that her husband was secretly being funded by a Russian oligarch close to the Russian president.
- Over 3,000 UK registered companies appear in the FinCEN SARs files, a number higher than any other country on the list, which has caused the UK to be called a “higher risk jurisdiction”.
- The owner of the English professional football club Chelsea, Roman Abramovich was revealed to have invested in footballers outside of his club through an offshore company.
- A central bank in the UAE repeatedly avoided warnings regarding a local firm that had been aiding Iran evade financial barriers for transactions.
- A German multinational financial services company Deutsche Bank was found to be involved in laundering dirty money from terrorism, organized crimes, and drug trafficking.
- Another British multinational bank Standard Chartered, that also operates actively in Pakistan with hundreds, if not thousands, of branches in the country, was reported to be making transactions for Jordinian private company Arab Bank for over 10 years after their clients’ accounts had been found to be used in the funding of terrorism.
While there are similarities with the previous documents leaks over the past 7 years, the FinCEN Leaks are more significant because the major involvements are from multinational, highly trusted banks and not just political individuals or companies. The questions that arise include the worry over why the banks remained quiet and did not take action against the activities. One reason is that banks cannot really easily take action or prosecute anything or anyone despite whatever is happening.
Currently, it is the safety of the individuals and institutions reporting on the banks that is of concern alongside the national security of all countries involved against one another.
It was recently announced that proposals are being developed to repair the laundering schemes and the damages caused by them; this includes the UK’s plans for reforming their company register to prevent further fraud and laundering to take place.
All that we are wondering right now is this: is there a link between COVID-19, the quarantine/lockdown, and the FinCEN files? The possibilities are endless…
Credit: Synga
