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GGD-94-91R 1 (1994-02-15)

handle is hein.gao/gaobackmo0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 


United States
General Accounting Office
Washington. D.C. 20548
                                                   /SO' 77 ff
General Government Division

B-256381



February 15, 1994

The Honorable Henry B. Gonzalez
Chairman, Committee on Banking,
  Finance and Urban Affairs
House of Representatives

Dear Mr. Chairman:

This letter is in response to your October 28, 1993, inquiry
concerning a Department of the Treasury initiative to
facilitate access by the states to Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)
data.

At the Committee's July 8, 1993, hearing in San Antonio,
Texas, Treasury officials announced the initiation of
Project Gateway, a test program that would allow Texas law
enforcement authorities direct access to BSA data maintained
on a computer at the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Detroit
Computing Center. You asked us to determine if Project
Gateway had been implemented as it had been described at the
hearing and if Texas officials had found the data useful.
You also asked why Texas officials were considering
purchasing BSA data on magnetic tape to process at a state
computer facility if they had access to the entire database
in Detroit.

As you know, Treasury regulations implementing the BSA
require banks and other financial institutions to report
currency transactions over $10,000. Federal law enforcement
agencies have found these reports extremely useful in
combatting money laundering. As we previously reported,'
state law enforcement agencies normally access BSA data by
contacting a Treasury organization known as the Financial
Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) which is located in
Virginia. Authorized state personnel provide FinCEN with a
written request that specifies the name of an individual or
business under investigation. FinCEN analysts query the
database using terminals linked to IRS' Detroit facility to


'Money Laundering: State Efforts To Fight It Are Increasing
But More Federal Help Is Needed (GAO/GGD-93-1, Oct. 15,
1992).


GAO/GGD-94-91R Money Laundering: Project Gateway

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