Money Laundering

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, part of the Department of the Treasury, distributes a variety of financial data to help federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies combat money laundering. Since its inception less than four years ago, the network has been receiving a steadily increasing volume of requests for intelligence data. Similarly, the number of individual agencies requesting these data has continued to rise each year. The network also provides strategic intelligence analyses that identify emerging trends, patterns, and issues relating to money laundering. Law enforcement groups use these reports for everything from instructional seminars to threat assessments of specific geographic areas. Although some of its work is self-initiated, the network is receiving more and more requests from other agencies for specific types of strategic analyses.

GAO found that: (1) Treasury established FinCEN in 1991 to serve and assist other law enforcement agencies in identifying, investigating, and prosecuting money laundering activities; (2) FinCEN supports federal, state, local, and foreign authorities by analyzing and disseminating various financial and crime data; (3) the number of law enforcement agencies that request and rely on FinCEN for intelligence data has steadily increased since 1991; (4) the law enforcement community views FinCEN as a valuable asset for tactical support and strategic research; (5) FinCEN generates strategic analyses to assist law enforcement agencies identify emerging trends, patterns, and other issues related to money laundering; (6) although some FinCEN activities are self-initiated, the number of requests by other agencies for specific types of analyses have increased significantly; and (7) although FinCEN has attempted to develop new data systems and improve its ability to coordinate money laundering investigations and identify suspected offenders, its initiatives have not been operational long enough to measure their effectiveness.