Money trail. (Trade Talk).

Check cashing agencies across the United States are sporting new advertisements and posters--many of them in Spanish--in a US$10 million effort to crack down on money-laundering. Among the money services businesses facing scrutiny are the mom-and-pop shops favored by Latin American immigrants who, worldwide, sent $23 billion in remittances to their home countries last year.

"The goal is to make money-handling and financial services companies, like banks, report suspicious money activity:' says Jane Fisher at the U.S. Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Center, or FinCEN. U.S. officials say the reports could lead them to a range of lawbreakers, from smugglers trafficking in illegal immigrants to drug cartels cleaning cash.

The new push complies with a 1994 law; implementation was delayed until last year when about 5% of the estimated 200,000 money services businesses in the United States were required to register. Passage of the Patriot Act, designed to strengthen the fight against terrorism, has hiked interest in the effort.

Latin Americans heavily support the money services businesses. Mexicans, including those in Canada and Europe, led the remittance race last year by sending home $9 billion. Brazilians followed at $2.6 billion.

Patrice Motz, chief of the money services business program at FinCEN, concedes that the program is not failsafe. She even identifies the easiest way to launder money: refunds of money orders.