Criminals who need to move large amounts of value far, fast, irreversibly, anonymously, and to a third party are most likely to see crypto as the financial product that meets their needs.
After years of neglect, it appears that Human Smuggling financing is a priority to government agencies. Human Smuggling Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) filed by MSBs have skyrocketed since mid-2021 while banks' filings have remained flat. FinCEN issued then deleted a Human Smuggling Alert on 12/16/2022.
Several key threats including Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime and Tax Evasion do not have SAR category checkboxes. SAR data is only "useful" to government authorities inasmuch as it is discoverable. Structured data is more easily searchable and will lead to improved AML effectiveness.