The U.S. Treasury Department's anti-money laundering unit on Thursday named Tanzania's FBME Bank Ltd, formerly known as the Federal Bank of the Middle East, a foreign financial institution of primary money laundering concern. It accused the bank of using its branches in Cyprus to make international transfers of dirty money, some linked to the militant group Hezbollah and the allegedly corrupt son of the president of Equatorial Guinea. When finalized, the proposed rule issued by Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) pursuant to Section 311 of the Patriot Act will require U.S. banks to sever their correspondent banking links to FBME and take steps to insure it does not funnel money through other banks, effectively severing it from the U.S. financial system. "FBME promotes itself on the basis of its weak Anti-Money Laundering (AML) controls in order to attract illicit finance business from the darkest corners of the criminal underworld," said FinCEN Director Jennifer
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