The Treasury Department labeled the exchange houses, Kassem Rmeiti and Halawi Exchange, "primary money laundering concerns," which will most likely cut them off from the American financial system.
In deciding on sanctions, Mr. Bush went beyond the lawmakers' list to order American financial institutions to cut any ties with the Commercial Bank of Syria, citing money laundering concerns.
The Commercial Bank of Syria was identified by the Treasury Department as a financial institution of primary money laundering concern in 2004 and, pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, has been subject since 2006 to a final rule prohibiting U.S. financial institutions from maintaining correspondent accounts for the Commercial Bank of Syria.
The complaint against the Beirut-based Lebanese Canadian Bank was filed under a rarely used provision of the Patriot Act that allows the Treasury Department to publicly identify financial institutions considered "primary money laundering concerns" and then move to restrict their business dealings in the United States.
The Treasury Department named the Central Bank of Iran and the entire Iranian banking system as a "primary money laundering concern" — an unusual and symbolically important step, but one that is short of formal sanctions, which would probably be resisted by China and other Asian countries that import oil from Iran.
The US also named Iran a "primary money laundering concern".
But gaming establishments are worried about handling the weed money, due in part to money laundering concerns.
The Patriot Act allows America to designate entities or even whole classes of transactions as "primary money-laundering concerns".
That is the section of America's Patriot Act of 2001 that gives the Treasury sweeping powers to act against those who facilitate financial crime, anywhere in the world, by labelling them a "primary money-laundering concern".
But the heart of the book is the emergence and evolution of Section 311 of the Patriot Act, which allows the Treasury Department to designate any bank in the world as a "primary money-laundering concern" and prevent it from doing business with any American bank.
