WASHINGTON — The Treasury Division’s Monetary Crimes Enforcement Community on Friday urged monetary establishments to intensify vigilance towards schemes that use the U.S. banking system to pay and exploit unlawful aliens, a part of the Trump administration’s broader push to safe the nation’s borders and monetary integrity.
In an advisory issued collectively with the Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Corp., Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money and Nationwide Credit score Union Administration, and in coordination with the Inner Income Service, FinCEN highlighted dangers from illegal employment practices that depress wages for American employees, facilitate identification theft and drain tax income from authorities profit applications.
“President Trump has performed greater than anybody in historical past to safe our nation’s borders. A part of that effort consists of securing our monetary system,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mentioned in a press release. “This Administration is not going to permit unlawful aliens to abuse monetary establishments to steal billions of {dollars} from hardworking American taxpayers.”
The advisory particulars how complicit employers in industries similar to agriculture, development, home service and hospitality conceal violations of immigration legal guidelines by way of identification theft and payroll fraud. Unlawful aliens typically use stolen Social Safety numbers or different personally identifiable data belonging to U.S. residents and lawful everlasting residents to safe jobs, wages, advantages and entry to monetary companies.
Schemes regularly contain labor brokers who set up shell corporations, typically working as unregistered cash companies companies, to course of off-the-books payroll. Employers ship checks to those entities, which then launder funds and distribute funds to employees by way of money couriers, checks or peer-to-peer platforms with out withholding federal or state taxes.
FinCEN’s evaluation factors to the usage of overseas passports or Particular person Taxpayer Identification Numbers to open accounts for such operations. In a single cited case research, two overseas nationals ran a years-long payroll fraud scheme using undocumented employees that value america greater than $38 million.
Monetary establishments reported greater than $2.5 billion in suspicious exercise tied to associated payroll tax fraud schemes in 2025, based on the advisory.
The steerage encourages enhanced due diligence when Particular person Taxpayer Identification Numbers are used rather than Social Safety numbers or legitimate work authorization paperwork, notably for opening accounts or acquiring credit score. It additionally lists 18 pink flag indicators to assist banks detect and report such exercise.
Establishments are requested to incorporate the important thing time period “FINANCIALINTEGRITY-2026-A002” in Suspicious Exercise Report filings to flag connections to the advisory. FinCEN additionally urged reporting tips on employers knowingly hiring unauthorized employees to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The motion helps Government Order 14406, “Restoring Integrity to America’s Monetary System,” and aligns with ongoing efforts to stop exploitation of the monetary system by unlawful aliens.
