The vast majority of money transmitters are honest.

Forty-eight US states regulate money transmitters although the laws vary from one state to the other.

State bank regulators from around the nation have been meeting this week in Austin, Tex., to explore the growing problem of illegal money transmitters.

He added in his testimony that the state did not regulate check cashing or money transmitters.

New York, Texas and California, for instance, each have fewer than six people who work full time monitoring money transmitters.

Federal law-enforcement agencies tend to leave many of these cases to the states because their banking departments have jurisdiction over money transmitters.

Texas officials said 29 businesses had been licensed as money transmitters or sellers of money orders under that state's laws.

The people who deal with the money transmitters are often recent immigrants unfamiliar with the law or in the United States illegally.

Many money transmitters say their banks have even closed their accounts, saying the independent cash transfer business is too expensive to service.

Generally, a money transmitter markets its services through a network of agents.