The public comment period on FinCEN's proposed rules for the Anti-Money Laundering Whistleblower Improvement Act closes June 1, 2026 — and what's at stake is significant.

Congress designed the AML WIA to extend the proven Dodd-Frank whistleblower model (more than $6.3 billion in sanctions recovered since 2010) to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, drug-cartel networks, and sanctions evasion. Advocates have called it the most comprehensive award program ever passed.

But FinCEN's proposed rules — published April 1 — depart from congressional intent in three critical ways:

• Technical traps that punish good-faith whistleblowers
• No real protection for international whistleblowers, who face the highest risks
• Exclusions Congress never authorized