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Mexico’s AML Troubles Exacerbated by Death Threats, Corruption: Former Treasury Official
printOf the up to $39 billion in illegal funds smuggled from the United States into Mexico every year, approximately half ends up in Mexican financial institutions, according Duncan DeVille, a former U.S. Treasury Department official who has advised international financial intelligence units for the government. Dirty money remains an "enormous" problem for the country, worsened at times by death threats to bank officials meant to ensure cooperation, said DeVille, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles. At the behest of cartel members, complicit compliance officials have mixed drug profits with the transactions of other bank clients who may be...
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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.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Friday that, in response to law enforcement concerns, armored car services and other couriers transporting cash between Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, California must comply with enhanced border declaration requirements.
Should suspicions that drug traffickers infiltrated the compliance department of a U.S.-owned bank in Mexico prove valid, it won't be the first example of such a scheme, or the last.
In internal reviews and an ongoing criminal and regulatory investigation, Citigroup employees and Mexican officials have privately voiced concerns that drug traffickers may have infiltrated Banamex's anti-money laundering department, say sources.
A U.S. program supplementing Mexico’s efforts to clamp down on drug trafficking and money laundering should be extended for years to come, American investigators say.
Armed resistance by militia groups to Mexico's violent drug cartels will complicate the efforts of bankers charged with following anti-money laundering laws, whatever their sympathies, say industry consultants.
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.
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.
Plans to attract foreign capital and expertise to Mexico's oil sector could give organized crime groups and corrupt officials an opportunity to layer and integrate dirty money, say industry analysts.
In the wake of regulatory crackdowns and multiple criminal probes, financial institutions operating in Mexico are spending millions of dollars to upgrade their anti-money laundering programs, say bank staff.
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.
Key features of an anti-money laundering strategy to combat drug trafficking organizations pitched last year by Mexican officials may ultimately be dropped by lawmakers, say industry advisors.
A broad anti-money laundering measure that would create and strengthen criminal penalties and impose reporting requirements on non-bank institutions in Mexico is likely to pass into law this month, say former government officials.
Mexican drug traffickers are likely laundering some of their profits in the country's casinos and nightclubs, as well as in campaign funds for political candidates, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic communiqué.
Despite reports that 30 percent of Mexico's currency is derived from illicit funds, many compliance officers are just now waking up to the reality of the country's extensive money laundering problems, according to an AML consultant who works with MSBs.
Mexico's Ministry of Finance is planning to issue new regulations on mortgage and property finance companies in an effort to curtail money laundering through property loans, a Mexican daily newspaper reported Monday.
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.
Mexico President Felipe Calderon introduced a bevy of measures Thursday designed to crimp the flow of illicit drug proceeds from entering the country's financial system, including by limiting cash transactions on purchasing aircraft, vehicles, and real estate.
Revisions to Mexico's anti-money laundering strategy promised earlier this month must account for regulatory-gaps in trade-based money laundering, the continuing problem of casas de cambio and the use of U.S. dollars in Mexico, say ex-law enforcement officials and compliance professionals.