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.
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.
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).
The New Mexico Attorney General's Office has expanded its team of anti-money laundering investigators as a result of a 2010 settlement between the state of Arizona and Western Union, according to the state's top prosecutor.
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.
Thousands of lightly regulated currency exchange centers in Mexico are suspected of laundering criminal proceeds for drug trafficking organizations, according to analysts and former Mexican 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.
Of 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 to a former official in the U.S. Treasury and Justice Departments.
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.
Only a month after their adoption, new rules limiting U.S. dollar deposits into Mexican financial institutions have pushed money laundering activity into the United States, federal regulators said Tuesday.
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.
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.
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.