COMPLIANCE
Your AML alert software culls a customer from out of the data stream. Your job in BSA / AML compliance is to review these types of anomalies and decide if it is worthy to file a SAR. All the identified indicators are consistent with your AML training and experiences and constitute near textbook examples of suspicious transactional activities. The kind of activities any regulator would consider a“ no-brainer” for a SAR filing.
A couple of months later, somewhere at a SAR Review Team far away, that well-articulated, brief and concisely written SAR grabs the attention of an agent reviewing a recent download. The address also catches the agent’ s attention. This is an area the agent is familiar with and where other“ front” businesses have been found to be covering for illicit activities. The agent knows that the amounts outlined are inconsistent for legitimate businesses of this type. They are consistent with the illicit activities the agent suspects are behind it. The agent begins to smell smoke!
Subpoenas are requested and eventually are approved and sent out. For the next couple months the agent is regularly on the phone, though often playing“ phone tag” with various entities at your financial institution. The agent was trying to get copies of the transactional documentations that actually constitute potential evidence. Over that time, various subpoena compliance people kept trying to convince the agent that the simple data processing printouts they have provided is all they have to offer. The agent well knows that these are not the documents that have evidential value. The agent needs those items( or at least good copies of) created or presented during the transactions in question. What the subpoena compliance people offer may make accounting sense, but it is not the evidence the agent knows the prosecutor will want. The agent is frustrated and eventually finds you in this quest.
You do your best to be helpful but you are not sure how to get what the agent is looking for. Frankly, you are not even certain what to look for. Although you understand that what was offered were not reproductions of what happened between the teller and the customer, your training never quite covered the small nuances of teller and customer interactions. Your next concern is that the videos the agent wants are held by another department you have little contact with or control over. You already know that such videos are normally only kept for 60 to 90 days. The SAR took 45 days to find its way to the agent. The subpoena was received about a month beyond that. You believe this request will be futile. Remarkably, after repeated messages, calls and emails between the agent and that department, a couple videos of these transactions are located and preserved.
The agent presses on and becomes certain these transactional activities are also something a teller or branch employee might find memorable. Prosecutors need witnesses like this. You again feel uncomfortable because your financial institution’ s policy is very cautious about allowing tellers to be interviewed about official business. After another series of phone calls and email exchanges with the legal people, the interviews with the branch people are approved.
The agent interviews the teller and, as suspected, is most helpful to the agent’ s inquiries. These transactions are unusual and the teller recalls them very clearly. The subject has even made some unwittingly culpable statements to the teller. Not quite yet a smoking gun, but certainly not exculpatory. The agent is somewhat relieved that this live witness is available. The investigation is progressing nicely.
What the sub poena compliance people offer may make accounting sense, but it is not the evidence the agent knows the prosecutor will want
Between the analyzed financial records, the videos and the teller interviews, the agent developed the clear probable cause needed to obtain search and seizure warrants and, hopefully, to recover the extra evidence to make a stronger case. The execution of such warrants would also provide the agent with the leverage and opportunity to interview the subject under optimum circumstances.
The agent provides the prosecutor with a well-articulated, brief and concise affidavit outlining the case, and the request for the warrants. The prosecutor instinctively knows this is a competent agent and a thorough investigation. The elements and evidence for an apparent straightforward prosecution seem to be there. Although the case is already“ pretty good,” the prosecutor stresses to the agent that a productive interview with the subject is also going to be important.
ACAMS TODAY | SEPTEMBER – NOVEMBER 2017 | ACAMS. ORG | ACAMSTODAY. ORG 55