FINCEN - History

In October 1970, in response to increasing reports of people bringing bags full of illegally-obtained cash into banks for deposit, Congress enacted the statute commonly referred to as the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). (Technically, the BSA is Titles I and II of Pub.L. 91-508, as amended. Title II is also called the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act.) The BSA has been amended many times since 1970, most recently by the Annunzio-Wylie Money Laundering Act ("Annunzio-Wylie") in 1992 and by the Money Laundering Suppression Act of 1994 (the "MLSA"). These amendments have given Treasury a wider variety of regulatory tools to combat money laundering.

When the Bush administration considered ways in which to make good on its pledge to win the war against drugs, it turned to a new type of law enforcement agency. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) was established in April 1990 by Treasury Order Number 105-08. Its original mission was to provide a governmentwide, multi-source intelligence and analytical network to support the detection, investigation, and prosecution of domestic and international money laundering and other financial crimes.

In May 1994, its mission was broadened to include regulatory responsibilities. The Treasury Department's Office of Financial Enforcement (OFE) was merged with FinCEN in October 1994. The combination of FinCEN with the office that had previously administered the BSA created a single anti-money laundering agency, that could combine regulatory, intelligence, and enforcement missions. Since then, FinCEN's goals have emphasized the streamlining and simplification of the BSA obligations of financial institutions and, at the same time, shaping the reporting system to make the available data more useful for law enforcement investigations.

FAS | Intelligence | Agencies | Treasury |||| Index | Search |

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/ustreas/fincen/history.htm
Created by John Pike
Maintained by Steven Aftergood

Updated Sunday, August 30, 1998 7:45:07 AM