According to a new report, from 2020 to 2024, U.S. banks laundered $312 billion for money launderers.
In a consultation report released by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on Thursday, the regulator analyzed over 137,000 Bank Secrecy Act reports from 2020 to 2024.
The report found that funds from money launderers flowed through the U.S. banking system at an average of over $62 billion per year.
The report states that money laundering networks have formed a symbiotic relationship with Mexican drug cartels. The cartels need to launder drug profits in U.S. dollars, while criminal gangs seek U.S. dollars to evade currency control laws.
"These networks launder money for Mexican drug cartels and are involved in other significant underground money transfer schemes within the U.S. and around the world," said FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki.
In addition to drug money laundering, the report adds that criminal gangs are also involved in human trafficking and smuggling, healthcare fraud, and elder abuse, with $53.7 billion in suspicious real estate transactions.
Despite this, cryptocurrency is often singled out by politicians supporting the banking industry (such as Senate Banking Committee senior member Elizabeth Warren) as being used for money laundering and illegal purposes.
"Bad actors are increasingly turning to cryptocurrency for money laundering," she said earlier this year, calling for stricter regulation.
The latest data reveals a frequently suppressed truth—most money laundering is unrelated to cryptocurrency.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the estimated amount laundered globally in a year exceeds $2 trillion.
In contrast, according to Chainalysis data, the total volume of illegal cryptocurrency transactions across the entire cryptocurrency sector over the past five years is approximately $189 billion.
"Illegal activity is just a small part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. We estimate it accounts for less than 1% of overall cryptocurrency transaction volume," Angela Ang, head of policy and strategic partnerships at TRM Labs, told Cointelegraph.
"FinCEN's findings align with a broader pattern—these underground banking networks operate as a shadow financial system for global organized crime, functioning in the gaps of the banking system," Ang said.
Related: U.S. government chooses Chainlink and Pyth to release economic data on-chain
Original article: “Money launderers moved $312B through U.S. banks from 2020-2024, but critics still blame cryptocurrency”
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