Reports from America suggest the Department of Justice (DoJ) has started its new offensive to combat money laundering by bringing criminal charges against banks and other financial institutions for weak compliance systems that fail to catch illicit money flows. The move follows a series of big, well-publicised cases involving sanctions-busting transactions routed through some of Europe's biggest banks. In 2010, the DoJ created within the asset forfeiture section a specialised unit, money laundering and bank integrity, to focus exclusively on financial institution cases. The unit, which is also handling the sanctions and stripping-related cases, is focused on fortifying the US financial system against money laundering and illicit finance by aggressively enforcing the Bank Secrecy Act. The term "stripping" refers to the practice of banks removing or masking information regarding transactions.
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