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Case summary: A woman was sentenced in 2010 after pleading guilty to a structuring charge resulting from the theft of funds from her elderly mother. Although the defendant received a relatively light sentence, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case noted that structuring was the only…

In 2006, a Federal grand jury indicted several businesses and individuals, including mortgage brokers, on numerous charges of mail fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit mail, wire and bank fraud and contempt of court in a nationwide scheme that purported to eliminate the mortgages of thousands of…

Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conducted an investigation into the illegal sale of cigarettes that led to the indictment of 13 defendants. Cigarettes that were purchased in a low tax state were sold in a high tax state without the payment of taxes in either…

A routine Suspicious Activity Report review by geographic zip codes led to the discovery of a retail store operator operating as a subagent for a licensed money services business. The preliminary investigation by the filing institution, along with a follow-up investigation by the Drug Enforcement…

In 2003, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents initiated an investigation of several non-profit organizations in the United States. These were all registered as tax-exempt organizations. The investigation revealed the organizations were operating as illegal wire remitting businesses…

In early 2012, FinCEN conducted outreach to all of its state and local law enforcement partners, and asked for cases where FinCEN data played a useful role in their investigations. Below, in their own words, is an example of how FinCEN's stakeholders use FinCEN data. It has been edited only for…

Information from SARs helped unravel a complex fraudulent banking scheme in which victims lost thousands of dollars to fake investments and a multinational financial institution had its identity stolen.The scheme to defraud investors allegedly started in late 2002, when an individual devised a plan…

Six people were convicted and sentenced for their involvement in a $12 million money laundering scheme. The scheme involved the wire transfers of drug proceeds to South American countries for the benefit of drug cartels.The defendants deposited drug proceeds into more than 50 bank accounts in the…

The filing of a number of Suspicious Activity Reports resulted in an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of three individuals for their part in the failure of a community bank that had been in business since the early 1900s. The individuals, one of whom was an officer at the bank,…