- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2023-04-27T16:22:00
What does the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) do with the millions of suspicious activity reports (SARs) it receives every year? If you work at a financial institution, you’ve likely wondered whether these SARs are ever even read, no less acted upon.
The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) requires approximately 260,000 financial institutions to have policies and procedures in place to identify and report suspicious activity within their transactions. Suspicious activity consists of money laundering, terrorist financing, or financing of weapons of mass destruction (proliferation financing).
In its year in review for fiscal year 2022, published Tuesday, FinCEN laid out the law enforcement investigations derived from the 4.3 million SARs filed in FY2022. The period covered began Oct. 1, 2021, and ended Sept. 30.
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The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a notice to financial institutions regarding its observations of increasing payroll tax evasion and workers’ compensation fraud taking place in the U.S. residential and commercial real estate construction industries.
Good suspicious activity reports make it easier for financial intelligence units to prioritize and process investigations, enabling better results in the global fight against financial crime.
Merrill Lynch was assessed penalties totaling $12 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for allegedly failing to file nearly 1,500 required suspicious activity reports over the course of a decade.
Bank of America avoided a monetary penalty in agreeing to settle charges with the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency but was ordered to shore up previously disclosed deficiencies in its Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering (BSA/AML) and sanctions compliance programs.
Aviation maintenance services provider AAR Corp. will pay nearly $56 million to settle charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when it paid bribes to government officials in Nepal and South Africa.
JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo Bank, Bank of America, and the company behind online money transfer app Zelle were sued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for allegedly failing to safeguard Zelle’s network and causing customers to lose $870 million, the CFPB alleged.
