FinCEN

The top Trump administration official leading U.S. sanctions policy and the nation’s financial intelligence unit is set to exit the role amid friction with his boss, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has launched a dedicated portal to accept whistleblower tips on money laundering, fraud, and sanctions violations, the U.S. Treasury Department announced on Friday. 

U.S. investigators are examining whether specific cryptocurrency platforms have helped Iranian officials and state-linked actors evade sanctions as crypto activity in Iran surges, a blockchain researcher with direct knowledge of Treasury’s concerns told Reuters.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday launched a set of initiatives to investigate what it called “rampant government benefits fraud” in Minnesota, including the imposition of new reporting requirements for financial institutions. 

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order directing the federal government to loosen marijuana regulations and accelerate a long-stalled effort to reclassify the drug, a step that could mark one of the biggest federal shifts on cannabis policy in decades, Reuters reported.

The Trump administration is moving to give the U.S. Treasury Department’s financial intelligence unit a decisive say over how banks are punished for anti–money-laundering (AML) failures, according to new reporting by The Wall Street Journal. 

The United States is tightening its oversight of the tens of billions of dollars resident and undocumented migrants send home each year through Western Union, MoneyGram, and other money services businesses (MSBs), according to a recent U.S. Treasury Department warning.  

Mexico’s banking lobby is urging lenders to adopt tougher rules on illicit finance that go beyond current law, after U.S. authorities moved to sever three Mexican firms from the American financial system for allegedly laundering money for fentanyl traffickers, according to Bloomberg.

The U.S. Treasury Department disclosed the existence of roughly $9 billion in 2024 financial activity tied to Iranian “shadow banking,” mapping a web of front companies and intermediaries used to sell sanctioned oil, launder illicit proceeds, and procure banned technology.

Proposed legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate would increase dollar-thresholds triggering reporting requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act for the first time since 1970 and require periodic adjustments to account for inflation, Republican lawmakers said.  The “Streamlining Transaction Reporting and Ensuring Anti-Money Laundering Improvements for a New Era Act”, or STREAMLINE Act, would raise the […]