FinCEN leak could threaten those reporting suspicious activity in the world's banks

Global banks have allowed criminals to move a total of $2 trillions worth of dirty money around the globe.

The thousands of leaked documents came to Buzzfeed News, known as the FinCEN (US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) files, also show how rich business leaders in Russia used these banks as loopholes against financial sanctions.

Other revelations brought up by the leak include how the United Arab Emirates' central bank did not act on concerns about a local firm which was assisting Iran in evading sanctions and how an associate of President Vladimir Putin used a London's Barclays to avoid sanctions. Moreover, how HSBC's services assisted the movement of stolen millions of dollars, despite warnings from US investigators that the scheme was a scam.

Despite FinCEN comprising of people at the US Treasury, if there are concerns about transactions made in US dollars, even if this is made outside the US, FinCEN receives these reports.

Over 2,500 documents collated from 2000 to 2017 were involved in the leak. They had been sent to the US authorities during this period as banks had concerns over what their clients were doing. Despite this, suspicious activity reports (SARS) are not necessarily proof of a crime. If banks have evidence of criminal activity, they should stop the movement of dirty money within the bank.

This comes as another financial scandal revealed over the last five years, joins multiple leaks of financial crime and secret deals revealed in the world's largest establishments such as the Paradise Papers in 2017 and the Panama Papers in 2016.

The way that the FinCEN papers differ from previous leaks is because they come from several banks rather than one or two companies. This leak, according to FinCEN, could influence US national security and threaten the safety of the institutions and the individuals within them, who have filed such reports.