Every year, more than $300 billion in concealed transactions is moved around the United States, according to a U.S. Department of the Treasury report on money laundering and terrorist financing threats.

Transnational criminal organizations, foreign intelligence services, and terrorist groups—as well as Internet fraudsters and other criminals—move billions of dollars each year through the international banking system and across borders to conceal the origin of the funds. To more effectively address the threat, the FBI has placed a renewed emphasis on investigations that target the middlemen who facilitate the hidden flow of cash.

“Our focus is on third-party facilitators,” said James Barnacle, who heads the FBI’s Money Laundering Unit. “They include, among others, lawyers, accountants, and brokers with the ability to facilitate the process of moving money for dangerous criminal organizations. That’s who our targets are.”