Reported by Nicole Sadek

The U.S. Treasury Department will seek to operationalize use of the country’s new beneficial ownership information database by law enforcement and finalize moves to clamp down on real estate money laundering over the next two years, according to the latest national illicit finance strategy.

The broad strategy document, released Thursday, details the United States’ priorities for combatting evolving illicit finance risks, from the proliferation of digital assets to ransomware attacks.

“Since our last strategy issued in 2022, we have made a lot of progress, but we also find ourselves in a changing illicit finance threat environment,” a Treasury official said. “This risk environment includes a range of scams and frauds, potent ransomware attacks, an opioid driven overdose epidemic, foreign terrorist attacks, corruption and criminal exploitation of the technological advances in payments and financial products services.”

Treasury also plans to shore up compliance guidance for financial institutions; improve collaboration between law enforcement, U.S. national security and intelligence agencies and international partners; and develop new, secure platforms for financial transactions.

The strategy highlights several regulatory gaps that open up the U.S. financial system to exploitation. The document points to “a notable uptick” in state-backed actors exploiting international financial systems and “laundering and moving funds to wage war” and “facilitate terrorism,” referencing the Oct. 7, 2023 attack in Israel by Hamas militants and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

The U.S. has already issued hundreds of sanctions against financiers of Hamasand against people and entities linked to Russia’s war, including financial institutions who facilitate transactions on behalf of oligarchs, as well as freezing billions of dollars worth of Russian assets.

Treasury intends to modernize its anti-money laundering policies and invest in training for analysts and regulators to address emerging cryptocurrency threats, including those related to “pig butchering scams” — a specific form of fraud that involves luring people into risky cryptocurrency investments, often with elaborate, fabricated stories.

Read full report: https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/new-us-treasury-strategy-targets-crypto-scams-and-real-estate-money-laundering/