{"id":37162,"date":"2025-08-29T11:27:48","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=37162"},"modified":"2025-08-29T11:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:30:12","slug":"us-banks-surpass-crypto-in-money-laundering-volume","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/us-banks-surpass-crypto-in-money-laundering-volume\/","title":{"rendered":"US Banks Surpass Crypto in Money Laundering Volume"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From 2020 to 2024, US banks processed transactions amounting to $312 billion for Chinese money laundering networks. Data from the <span data-descr=\"Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the USA\" class=\"old_tooltip\">FinCEN<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fincen.gov\/news\/news-releases\/fincen-issues-advisory-and-financial-trend-analysis-chinese-money-laundering\">revealed<\/a> that the majority of these funds flowed through the traditional financial system rather than cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n<p>On average, over $62 billion per year passed through the American banking system. FinCEN analyzed more than 137,000 reports filed under the Bank Secrecy Act.<\/p>\n<p>According to the document, Chinese money laundering networks collaborate with Mexican drug cartels, which launder drug sale proceeds in US dollars. Chinese groups use these funds to circumvent China&#8217;s currency controls.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u201cThese networks launder proceeds for Mexican drug cartels and are involved in other large-scale money movement schemes in the US and globally,\u201d stated FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Additionally, these groups engage in human trafficking, healthcare fraud, and real estate fraud. In the latter category, suspicious transactions amounted to $53.7 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The UN estimates that over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unodc.org\/unodc\/en\/money-laundering\/overview.html\">$2 trillion<\/a> is laundered globally each year. By comparison, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chainalysis.com\/blog\/2025-crypto-crime-report-introduction\/\">Chainalysis<\/a>, the total volume of illicit transactions using digital assets over the past five years was approximately $189 billion.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u201cIllicit activity is just a small part of the crypto ecosystem. We estimate it to be less than 1% of the total volume,\u201d commented TRM Labs Head of Policy Angela Eng to <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/money-launderers-moved-312b-through-us-banks-from-2020-2024\"><em>Cointelegraph<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>She added that FinCEN&#8217;s findings confirm a general trend: underground banking networks operate as a shadow financial system for organized crime, functioning at the intersection of <span data-descr=\"traditional finance\" class=\"old_tooltip\">TradFi<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in August, analysts at Global Ledger <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/cybercriminals-accelerate-laundering-of-cryptoassets\">identified<\/a> the speed of fund withdrawal by perpetrators after hacks as the main issue facing the crypto industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From 2020 to 2024, US banks processed transactions amounting to $312 billion for Chinese money laundering networks. The majority of these funds flowed through the traditional financial system rather than cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"US banks processed $312 billion for Chinese laundering networks, surpassing crypto.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1229,1269,1252,26],"class_list":["post-37162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-banks-and-fintech","tag-cryptocurrencies","tag-reports","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"273","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"US banks processed $312 billion for Chinese laundering networks, surpassing crypto.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37164,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37162\/revisions\/37164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}