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.
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.
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.
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.
A list of alleged Mexican drug traffickers could aid anti-money laundering departments in identifying suspicious transactions, say compliance officers.
U.S. lawmakers may need to earmark more money for Mexico's financial intelligence unit as part of a $1.9 billion aid package intended to help fight drug trafficking, a federal official said Thursday.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.