The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network reviewed Bank Secrecy Act filings and found clear warning signs of smuggling-related money movement: transfers between people with no obvious relationship, payments following known migration routes, and unusually high cash activity near the US-Mexico border. Financial institutions reported nearly $5 billion in transactions possibly tied to human smuggling between 2023 and 2025, a dataset that exposed how money flowed through the system.

Across the three-year window, filings peaked in 2024 with 29,266 BSA reports, then slipped from 27,256 reports in 2023 to just 11,018 in 2025. That drop — a 62% decline year-over-year from the peak — is stark, especially given that the second quarter of 2024 alone produced 8,663 filings, roughly 79% of all filings logged in 2025.

FinCEN’s numbers matter beyond accounting. The agency notes that many human smuggling operations help bankroll larger transnational criminal groups, including Mexican drug cartels, creating a money trail that supports violence and trafficking networks. Those connections made the flow of migrant payments a national security and public-safety problem as much as an immigration issue.

Politically, the timing is uncanny: the filings swelled in 2024, the last year of President Joe Biden’s single term, and then slid sharply in 2025, the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term. From a Republican perspective, the sequence supports the claim that tougher border enforcement and policy changes can choke cartel cash flows and blunt criminal enterprise incentives.

Critics of the prior administration point to the broader cost of lax border controls, arguing that open-border policies handed billions to violent networks. Rep. Warren Davidson previously estimated cartel revenue from smuggling exceeded $13 billion annually, a figure often cited to underscore how migration patterns can translate into powerful illegal economies.

The government has also linked smuggling revenue to drug trafficking and violent cartel operations. The Treasury highlighted the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, noting that the organization traffics “fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, and other illicit drugs” into the United States, and that synthetic opioids such as fentanyl drive the leading cause of overdose deaths in the country, according to DEA reporting.

On the violence front, the Treasury warned that “CJNG’s ruthless ambition to expand its operations has led the organization to deploy kidnappings, torture, bombings, and executions of civilians, Mexican politicians, and military and law enforcement officers,” and noted the cartel is also involved in illegal immigrant smuggling. That language underlines how smuggling revenues are one piece of a larger criminal portfolio.

Federal agencies now say border enforcement is changing the math for smuggling networks. The Department of Homeland Security and US Customs and Border Protection announced “15 consecutive months of zero releases at the border, continuing the unprecedented trend of historically low border crossings.” Those operational metrics line up with the decline in BSA reports flagged by FinCEN.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin framed these developments strongly: “Again this month, the results are clear: President Trump’s border security agenda is restoring order and putting the safety of the American people first,” he said. “DHS remains focused on enforcing our immigration laws, securing the border, and ensuring those who enter our country illegally are removed swiftly. Thanks to the strong leadership of President Trump, we have the most secure border in history.”

The intersection of financial surveillance and border enforcement shows how policy shifts can alter illicit economies, at least on paper. FinCEN’s analysis provides concrete transaction-level evidence that suspected smuggling-related flows dropped in 2025, and that those drops correspond with the enforcement posture adopted after 2024.

For lawmakers and law enforcement, the takeaway is clear: tracking financial patterns remains a crucial tool in tracing and disrupting smuggling networks. As agencies continue to mine BSA data and coordinate on border operations, expect the mix of financial oversight and tougher immigration enforcement to remain a focal point in efforts to deprive cartels of easy revenue.