FINANCIAL CRIMES ENFORCEMENT NETWORK FINCEN

A network administered by the United States Department of the Treasury whose goal it is to prevent and punish criminals and criminal networks that participate in money laundering. FinCEN operates domestically and internationally, and it consists of three major players: law-enforcement agencies, the regulatory community and the financial-services community.

By researching mandatory disclosures imposed on financial institutions, FinCEN tracks suspicious persons, their assets and their activities to make sure that money laundering is not occurring. FinCEN tracks everything from very complicated electronically based transactions to simple smuggling operations that involve cash. As money laundering is such a complicated crime, FinCEN seeks to fight it by bringing different parties together.