Follow-Up: Bessent Announces New Fraud Prevention Measures in Minnesota, With Two FinCEN Actions and Nearly $190 Million in Overseas Fraud Funds Stopped
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, alongside other senior U.S. officials, on October 30 announced several initiatives to combat the rampant fraud in Minnesota, the Treasury Department said in a release issued from St. Cloud, in Stearns County, Minnesota. As part of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, Treasury said it continues to work to protect American taxpayer dollars and restore integrity to federal benefits programs.
"When greed meets negligence, the American people suffer," said Secretary Bessent. "Under President Trump and Vice President Vance's leadership, Treasury stopped nearly $190 million in funds tied to overseas fraud and returned more than $100 million to U.S. victims. We are working with the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud to help prevent this kind of abuse from happening again, in Minnesota or anywhere else."
One measure is an alert issued the same day by Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) asking financial institutions to watch for suspicious activity involving certain cross-border payments involving U.S.-based money services businesses (MSBs). From 2021 to 2025, U.S. financial institutions reported more than $8 billion in potentially suspicious wire payments sent through U.S.-based MSBs at the direction of foreign agents, Treasury said; bad actors may exploit certain MSBs' cross-border relationships to move funds through the U.S. financial system while obscuring the ultimate beneficiaries and purposes, structures that can help conceal illicit activity such as funding for terrorist organizations.
FinCEN also issued a notice to help financial institutions detect and report suspicious activity involving the exploitation of charities and non-profit organizations, describing three types of schemes: sham charities, fraud schemes in which funds are used to support the perpetrators' lifestyle, and embezzlement by insiders abusing a position of trust.
The release also cited accountability through IRS Criminal Investigation: Salim Said, a co-conspirator in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, was sentenced this week to 30 years in federal prison, in a case investigated by the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and Homeland Security Investigations. Treasury said Bessent visited the Twin Cities earlier this year to announce Treasury initiatives and investigations aimed at combating fraud in Minnesota, held training sessions for state and local law enforcement, and continues to support federal, state, and local law enforcement with data essential to generating leads and dismantling fraud schemes.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国财政部长 Scott Bessent 在明尼苏达州 St. Cloud 举行的反欺诈工作组记者会上讲话。白宫官方视频截图，美国联邦政府作品，公共领域。 / U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent speaks at the Fraud Task Force press conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Still from the official White House video; work of the U.S. federal government, public domain.
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