Audio Transcript

Mollie Halpern: The ever-changing threat from money laundering leads the FBI to intensify its efforts to combat the crime.

The Bureau’s restored Money Laundering Unit will ferret out the crime’s facilitators, who hide identities and dirty money—often times using shell companies to do so.

These facilitators can include lawyers, brokers, and accountants. Patrick Fallon, chief of the FBI's Financial Crimes Section, says the facilitators don't discriminate when it comes to the types of clients they're willing to serve.

Patrick Fallon: One day they would be laundering funds for a drug dealer, the next day they could be laundering funds for a corrupt politician. 

Halpern: The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, launched a pilot project just this month that is expected to produce data about money laundering in the real estate sector. The FBI is part of the project.

Fallon: We think there is great intelligence to be gathered from this project, and this will help us identify additional groups who are involved in the facilitation of money laundering.

Halpern: The FBI’s enhanced efforts to combat money laundering also includes partnering with private industries and international law enforcement, who are experiencing similar criminal threats. With FBI, This Week, I’m Mollie Halpern of the Bureau.