Reported by Grace Schepis

When President Biden signed the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Whistleblower Improvement Act on December 29th, 2022, the Treasury Department had its work cut out for them.

In the shadow of the highly successful Securities and Exchange (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commissions (CFTC), the new program is expected to process money laundering, sanctions busting, and Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) violations with the same vigor. Before the updated law, whistleblower awards were discretionary, with no mandatory minimum payment amount and no fund to pay them from. Like Dodd-Frank programs, the new AML law also guaranteed confidentiality and anonymity to those reporting under it.

Stephen M. Kohn, who has been representing whistleblowers since 1984, was an outspoken advocate for the law as it made its way through Congress.

“The new AML law has the potential to be the most effective transnational anti-corruption law on the book,” said Kohn, founding partner of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, “because money laundering plays a role in a wide variety of crimes. Everything from tax evasion to bribery to drugs could involve laundered funds.”

The question became: how? How was FinCEN, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network that was designated to carry out this law, planning on running this program? Did they have the money? The manpower?

The FY 2024 Budget speaks for itself.

• $29,347,000 increase in previous year’s budget for purposes of implementing the AML Act.
• 60 new full-time employees dedicated to AML Act implementation.
• 400 total new full-time employees expected by the end of FY 2024.

Read full report: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/treasury-and-fincen-are-taking-the-new-2732041/