Money services businesses include non-bank financial providers such as currency exchanges, check-cashing firms, and money transmitters.
The Treasury Department has announced a wide-scale enforcement operation targeting more than 100 money services businesses operating along the U.S.–Mexico border, as part of the Trump administration’s campaign to disrupt cartel money laundering through America’s financial system.
The operation, announced on Dec. 22 by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), focuses on examining money services businesses, or MSBs, operating along the southwest border for potential noncompliance with rules meant to detect money laundering and disrupt illicit finance.
It’s part of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to combat cartels and other transnational criminal networks whose actions harm U.S. communities and threaten national security.
“At President Trump’s direction, the Treasury Department is utilizing all tools to stop terrorist cartels, drug traffickers, and human smugglers,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
“This sweeping operation will help root out potential cartel-related money laundering from the U.S. financial system.”
Money services businesses include non-bank financial providers such as currency exchanges, check-cashing firms, and money transmitters.
Treasury officials say those businesses face heightened exposure to illicit finance in border regions, where drug traffickers and smuggling networks seek to move proceeds in small, structured transactions designed to avoid detection.
The new data-driven operation—described by FinCEN as the “first-of-its kind”—was made possible by Treasury’s modernization efforts, including the use of advanced technology to transform fragmented financial information into investigative leads to fight financial crimes more effectively.
The agency said the operation is based on the analysis of more than 1 million currency transaction reports and roughly 87,000 suspicious activity reports submitted by financial institutions.
Using high-performance data processing, the agency is identifying potential compliance failures under the Bank Secrecy Act that could warrant civil penalties, injunctive actions, warning letters, or criminal referrals, it said.
The operation has already produced six notices of investigation, dozens of examination referrals to the IRS, and more than 50 compliance outreach letters, according to the agency.
The move marks an escalation in targeted enforcement of rules meant to combat financial crime, with FinCEN saying that advanced analytics are able generate “reliable decision-grade leads at scale” for regulators and law enforcement to act on.
By Tom Ozimek
