News
Mexico Strengthens Bank AML Requirements
printMexico bolstered its anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing regulations for banks Monday, requiring more stringent suspicious activity reporting and customer identification. The regulations, published in Mexico's Official Gazette of the Federation, require banks to confirm and retain copies of customers' identifying documents and establish risk-classification procedures for potential clients. In fulfilling know-your-customer duties, bank officials must verify the first and last name, date-of-birth, nationality, residency and profession of clients, under the rules. Additionally, Mexican banks must report every international transfer of funds conducted by customers and develop and maintain transaction monitoring procedures for the transmission and transfer of cash and...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
The recent joint effort between the U.S. and Mexico in the arrest of Sinaloa Cartel head Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman can be seen as a sign of renewed cooperation between investigators in both countries after a yearlong lull.
Mexican officials will extend until February an upcoming deadline for nonbank companies to implement anti-money laundering controls, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
An agreement formalizing cooperation between a Mexican financial regulator and a U.S. overseer of money services businesses and banks is likely to result in more enforcement actions in both countries.
Money launderers working on behalf of Mexican cartels have moved southward after a deferred prosecution agreement between Western Union and Arizona gave investigators unprecedented access to remittance data in Northern Mexico, according to Vince Piano.
Bank compliance staff should better scrutinize clients tied to Central America and Mexico's cattle industry following a spate of related U.S. sanctions, say current and former officials.
Recent investigations indicate that a number of Mexican brokerage firms are converting drug profits into pesos and using a network of couriers to layer the money in American bank accounts.
A list of alleged Mexican drug traffickers could aid anti-money laundering departments in identifying suspicious transactions, say compliance officers.
Trade-based schemes and bulk cash smuggling are among the most common tactics used by international money launderers, according to Joseph Gallion, the deputy assistant director of the Financial, Narcotics and Special Operations Division for the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Mexican cartel members are exploiting mirror accounts in the United States and Mexico to launder money and evade U.S. dollar deposit restrictions, financial regulators said Thursday.
State prosecutors along the U.S.-Mexico border are studying whether drug traffickers are acting as subagents for Mexican banks that front payments on behalf of American money services businesses.
It seems incongruous: even as Mexico's problems with drug trafficking, money laundering and violence have worsened in unprecedented ways, the Latin American economy's ability to attract foreign investors has grown.
New rules restricting U.S. dollar deposits at Mexican banks could end up pushing billions in illicit cash through U.S. and Latin American financial institutions, say compliance professionals.
The Mexican Finance Ministry Tuesday unveiled strict new limits on cash deposits of U.S. dollars in efforts to curb the flow of illicit cash into the financial system from drug traffickers.
Dozens of U.S. banks along the country's southern border are denying new accounts to wealthy Mexican nationals and corporations because of due diligence troubles caused by drug-related violence in Mexico.
The decision by a London-based global bank to end its foreign currency exchange business in Mexico has had no long-term impact on curtailing money laundering, according to a U.S. report.
Mexican AML consultant Alberto Avila recently spoke with reporter Larissa Bernardes about FATF's mutual evaluation of Mexico and the budget challenges facing compliance departments in the Latin American country.
Mexico and the United States will create a joint trade intelligence organization to collect and analyze data on the movement of goods between the two countries as part of an effort to stem money laundering and fraud.
Casas de cambio, or currency exchange houses, in Mexico are now required to report suspicious transactions and meet other anti-money laundering requirements similar to those of banks in the nation.
A Mexican federal court has placed a restraining order on the newspaper El Independiente to prevent its sale while federal prosecutors conduct a money laundering investigation of its owner Carlos Ahumada, who is now a fugitive.
A report published in September by the Drug Enforcement Agency's Office of Investigative Intelligence on money laundering in Mexico, says the country is one of the primary money laundering centers in Latin America.