A set of more than 2500 documents with more than 2100 Suspicious Activity Reports was disclosed in a major step of disclosure after the episodes of Panama papers and the Paradise papers. This came in the form of FinCEN disclosure report. The total transactional value of all the disclosed documents with suspicious transactions stands at around $2 trillion. The US financial crimes investigation network is known as FinCEN.  When transactions occur in US Dollars, and they raise concerns, then such transactions need to be reported to FinCEN, irrespective of whether such transactions took place in USA or anywhere else in the world.

Generally such transactions are recorded in the form of suspicious activity reports. These reports are submitted to the authorities which are generally the central bank, finance ministry, central economic intelligence bureau, ED, or DRI (like in the Indian case).

The documents in the recent FinCEN disclosure were first obtained by Buzzfeed News. This organization then shared them with the International consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which had brought forth the Paradise and Panama Papers.

Initial investigation of the FinCEN files by the Indian Express has revealed varied types of players in such transactions of dirty money which range from a global firm dealing in Diamonds owned by Indians, to a top hospitality and healthcare group, to an antique and art smuggler who is currently in jail. The transactions details also showed names of a sponsor of the IPL, a steel firm which is bankrupt, and a hawala dealer among others.

The bankrupt Indian steel firm reported in the FinCEN is Jindal Steel and Power Corporation. It was found that the steel company had sent money to companies which are based in Germany, Mauritius, and UK. The JSPL had links with Trans Global Minerals and Metals Corporation of Mauritius and Oceanwide Services of Germany. The company had received funds from firms based in Switzerland and Dubai in the same set of days as its outgoing transactions.

Other transactions and dealings across countries which have a political touch have also been made visible by the disclosure. Links between Russian oligarchs and conservative political players in England have been brought in the limelight by the disclosure. It has been found in the disclosure that Lubov Chernukhin, is a donor for Tories, which is a conservative party in England upholding traditionalist and order-centric ideologies. Lubov was funded by a Russian through her husband, who received payments (around 8 million GBP) from a British Virgin Islands company. The company was linked to Suleyman Kerimov, a Russian supposedly linked to Kremlin. Lubov had paid around £ 1.7 million to the Tories, for gaining proximity to the English PM. This shows the role played by money and intermediaries in the anarchic and unpredictable realpolitik of the world.

In another revelation a transaction was found in which a laboratory of a Chemist in Wuhan had received dollars from a drug dealer based in Rhodes Island. Numerous other transactions by nefarious entities who had raided tombs of Buddhist sites were also unearthed. Through tracing of the transactions, it was found out that the stolen Buddhist artefacts had made their way to museums and galleries in New York. FinCEN also disclosed details of scandals by typhoons who had siphoned money out of Venezuelan hospital and healthcare sector and public housing. It revealed networks of flow of money between such players which are responsible for crumbling of economies in east Europe and Africa.

After bringing out the disclosure of the FinCEN files, ICIJ has firmly stated that the disclosures expose the failure of the banks towards the public when they allow the transmission of dirty money through their channels.