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Fighting crime should not be a bank problem.

Putting this burden on banks is a thing pretty unique to the US. Not sure why anyone would be surprised to find out this does not work.

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It's not at all unique to the US. The EU has AML/KYC legislation, which pushes the burden down through the banks to the customer.

Kind of true, yes, in theory, because FATF is largely controlled by the US and it enforced US-style rules to the rest of the world. However, on the practical level AML/KYC works differently outside of the US. Regulator would create well-defined criteria for banks to execute: To onboard a customer bank must do this and this, check that field against that record. In the US regulators just washed their hands and placed the burden on banks: banks must make all the "reasonable" efforts to "know" their customer and what is is deemed "reasonable" varies across banks, branches and even individual clerks.

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