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Human Smuggling Crisis Draws Warning from FinCEN

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, instructed financial institutions in an advisory Friday to closely monitor transactions for red flags that may indicate links to human smugglers along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The 10-page advisory warns that U.S. apprehensions of migrants and other “encounters” along the southwest border have ballooned from fewer than 500,000 in 2020—when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak—to more than 2.3 million last year. Revenue from human smuggling may now reach as high as $6 billion annually.

Banks and other financial services providers should be on the lookout for eight potential indicators of the crime, including “currency deposits into U.S. accounts without explanation, followed by rapid wire transfers to countries with high migrant flows (e.g., Mexico, Central America), in a matter that is inconsistent with expected customer activity.”

Most smuggling-related transactions still occur in cash, the bureau noted Friday, but many of them now move via peer-to-peer mobile payment applications or wire transfers.

Financial institutions should include a specific search term, “FIN-2023-HUMANSMUGGLING,” when filing suspicious activity reports on wires and other transactions they believe tie back to human smuggling and do the same when flagging cash payments of $10,000 or more that also raise suspicion.

Moneylaundering.com may update this coverage as more information becomes available.
Topics : Anti-money laundering , Human Trafficking
Source: U.S.: FinCEN
Document Date: January 13, 2023