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FinCEN Lost $15.4 Million from Data Retrieval Plan, Faces Potential Violation

By Matt Squire and Brian Orsak

UPDATE: Updates total losses associated with project and clarifies ambiguity in 8th paragraph. The U.S. Treasury Department wrote off $3.2 million in 2008 from a failed Bank Secrecy Act data mining program, bringing the losses associated with the project to at least $15.3 million. The scrapped project, called the BSA Direct Data Retrieval and Sharing Program, contributed to a $1.9 million decrease in assets in 2008 at the department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), according to an audit released Thursday by KPMG LLP for the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The 2008 write-off follows separate related losses of $5...

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