FinCEN Files: All you need to know about the documents leak

Leaked documents involving about $2tn of transactions have revealed how some of the world’s biggest banks have allowed criminals to move dirty money around the world.

They also show how Russian oligarchs have used banks to avoid sanctions that were supposed to stop them getting their money into the West.

It’s the latest in a string of leaks over the past five years that have exposed secret deals, money laundering and financial crime.

What are the FinCEN files?

The FinCEN files are more than 2,500 documents, most of which were files that banks sent to the US authorities between 2000 and 2017. They raise concerns about what their clients might be doing.

These documents are some of the international banking system’s most closely guarded secrets.

Banks use them to report suspicious behaviour but they are not proof of wrongdoing or crime.

They were leaked to Buzzfeed News and shared with a group that brings together investigative journalists from around the world, which distributed them to 108 news organisations in 88 countries, including the BBC’s Panorama programme.

Hundreds of journalists have been sifting through the dense, technical documentation, uncovering some of the activities that banks would prefer the public not to know about.

www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-54226107

FinCEN Files: Tory donor Lubov Chernukhin linked to $8m Putin ally funding

The husband of one of the Conservative Party’s biggest donors was secretly funded by a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Putin.

Lubov Chernukhin has given £1.7m to the Tories, including paying to spend time with the last three prime ministers.

Leaked files show her husband received $8m (£6.1m). The money initially came from a politician facing US sanctions due to his closeness to the Kremlin.

Her lawyers say the donations are not tainted by Kremlin influence.

A leak of banks’ “suspicious activity reports” – called the FinCEN Files and seen by BBC Panorama – shows Vladimir Chernukhin was sent the money in 2016 from a British Virgin Islands company linked to Suleyman Kerimov.

All you need to know about FinCEN documents leak
Officials at Deutsche Bank in New York reported it as being among $278.5m of transactions involving the offshore company.

There has been an increasing focus on donations to political parties from wealthy UK-based Russians in recent years, with July’s parliamentary report by the Intelligence and Security Committee referring to the possibility they could allow people to “assist Russian influence operations”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54228079