WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s (Treasury) Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an Advisory to assist financial institutions in identifying and reporting suspicious activity related to the financing of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The Advisory highlights how ISIS and its global affiliates fund themselves and receive financial support from sympathizers internationally and describes several typologies ISIS uses to transfer money between its affiliates. The Advisory also provides red flags that may assist financial institutions in identifying related suspicious activity.
“The threat from ISIS has evolved and changed over time, but its malicious intentions against the United States, its interests, and its allies have remained consistent,” said FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki. “As the terrorist organization looks for ways to take advantage of instability in Syria and elsewhere to grow and resurge, we look to financial institutions to remain vigilant in identifying ISIS funding streams and protecting the U.S. financial system from terrorist financing.”
ISIS is a Sunni terrorist organization that has conducted and inspired terrorist attacks worldwide for more than a decade, killing or injuring thousands of people. Last year’s mass casualty attacks in Iran and Moscow by ISIS’s branch in Central Asia, known as ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), as well as the 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans, carried out by an ISIS-inspired homegrown violent extremist (HVE), demonstrate that the ISIS threat and influence remains far-reaching and that vigilance is required at home and abroad.
This Advisory is a continuation of the sustained effort that Treasury has led for more than a decade, in coordination with the U.S. government interagency and foreign partners, to disrupt and eliminate ISIS’s revenue sources and financial networks. This Advisory is also consistent with the National Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Priorities, which include terrorist financing, as well as Treasury’s 2024 National Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment.
Questions regarding the contents of this advisory should be sent to the FinCEN Regulatory Support Section by submitting an inquiry at www.fincen.gov/contact.
The full alert is available online at FIN-2025-A001.