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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…

The owner of a service company was sentenced to three years in prison and two years supervised release following a guilty plea to structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements. An officer of the company pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return and was sentenced to 18 months…

A Suspicious Activity Report filed by a financial institution led to a bank fraud investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Office of Inspector General. The Suspicious Activity Report implicated a loan secretary in the misapplication of…

A U.S. district judge sentenced a financial manager to 10 years in custody for using two financial institutions to launder funds from an embezzlement he orchestrated while working for an Indian tribal government entity receiving Federal funds. He was charged with stealing more than $180,000 over a…

In a case started from SARs, investigators executing a search warrant found $1.8 million of unreported income stashed in a closet. Although the defendants legally earned the funds, they established a system to convert business revenues to cash with the explicit purpose of evading taxes. SARs…

On June 25, 1999, a doctor from southern California, was ordered to pay $250,000 in fines and was sentenced to five years’ probation after his conviction in Los Angeles County Superior Court on three money laundering charges. The doctor is awaiting trial on securities and insurance fraud charges.…

In a case initiated from a proactive review of SARs, an individual pled guilty to fraud when authorities discovered a scheme to defraud individuals and businesses out of millions of dollars. The SARs which triggered the investigation described in detail transactions related to the fraud. In…

Information generated from cooperating individuals during Operations Cornerstone, a major narcotics trafficking investigation in the Miami area, revealed narco-traffickers placed their drug proceeds into investments in the insurance industry. Policies were identified in various Channel Island…

One individual has pled guilty to multiple counts of money laundering, filing false tax returns, failing to file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FinCEN Form TD F 90-22.) and illegally transferring funds to Iran. The plea agreement also requires forfeiture of over half a million…

A federal credit union filed a SAR and helped initiate an investigation into a counterfeit check scheme that had similarities with Nigerian 419 fraud schemes. These frauds, designated as such because of the section of the Nigerian criminal code that prohibits them, often promise substantial…