It's much more of a financial intelligence collection operation.
The intelligence community has access to information about every transaction with greater than $10k (lower thresholds for monetary instruments) with at least one party of the transaction identified for over 25 years.
People also miss the fact that FIU operations also often include 314(a)/(b) letters (subpoenas for financial information on specific individuals) alongside their AML operations. Same for OFAC Sanctions monitoring (obvious example is Russian customers and assets).
The intelligence community has access to information about every transaction with greater than $10k (lower thresholds for monetary instruments) with at least one party of the transaction identified for over 25 years.
People also miss the fact that FIU operations also often include 314(a)/(b) letters (subpoenas for financial information on specific individuals) alongside their AML operations. Same for OFAC Sanctions monitoring (obvious example is Russian customers and assets).