Ok, there’s been a lot of talk about SAR’s (Suspicious Activity Reports) and CTR (Currency Transation Reports). I have a peice of paper saying I am a certified “BSA” (Bank Secrecy Act) expert. So fire away.
And yes, I accept that there will be some “friend” and “hypothetical” questions. Remember, I Am Not A Lawyer, and asking for specific legal advice on this (or any other) Message board is just plain foolish.
One thing- many dudes know that the IRS collects data on cash transactions over $10,000. Too damn many of these same dudes then try to get around that by trying to fool the bank/etc. Unless you are involved in something illegal*- do NOT do this. That’s called “structuring” and it’s a crime all by itself (See USC Title 31 and the Patriot Act) and it draws a lot of attention from the Feds (via a SAR), whilst a CTR draws virtually none.
Thus, if you have $11,000 in cash to deposit- just do it (they will file a CTR). Do NOT deposit $9,900 on Monday and $1,100 on Tuesday (they very likely wil file a SAR).
I’m in banking myself (although on the loan origination side), and I wonder how all the information about the SARs are getting out to the papers. I was always under the impression that SARs were extremely confidential, and even telling a person a SAR had been filed was a violation of the BSA.
Any ideas on this?
Sorry, I’m speaking of the big prostitute scandal.
Yes, that’s correct. It’s OK to disclose a CTR, but it is verboten to disclose a SAR. This does not apply to the Gov’t if they must do so during the course of an investigation.
DrDeth, I realize you answered this in the OP, but what if the numbers were changed? Say, a friend moves $5K once a week for several weeks? Say, this friend isn’t actually doing or planning to do anything illegal, just has personal reasons not to have big awareness that such money might be hypothetically available?
BTW, is your username from that comic strip, “Dr. Deth with Kip and Muffy”? It’s GOOD!
There is no dollar limit for SAR’s they can be filled out at any time for pretty much anything you’d like. CTR’s are still at $10,000 for depositing or withdrawing cash. There was a movie or TV show recently that gave the impression that the amount had been lowered to $3000, but that is incorrect.
However, if you bring in over $3000 in cash to purchase a negotiable instrument (a money order, gift cards, traveler’s checks, a cashier’s check, etc…) then a report very similar to a CTR does need to be filled out.
The Them if he’s moving $5,000 weekly then its very unlikely that he’ll show up on a CTR report. Especially if he’s rotating it between several different banks. Depending on how often the money moves around or how attentive the Tellers are its certainly likely that he has had a Suspicious Activity report filled out on him. The primary reason for this (in my experience) is that Tellers dislike taking in large amounts of cash and then giving it back out a week later, only to have that repeated twice a month. A Customer who consistently makes extra work certainly get noticed and reported more often than the average person.
Given the fact that SAR’s have increased by some ridiculous number in the last 7 years, I have my doubts that every single one really gets the attention it deserves. The bank that I work for went from filing the average of 1 SAR a day in 2000 to filing over 14 per day. The reason for this is that we want to make sure that if there is a situation that grabs the attention of the powers that be, that we have a SAR on file for them so that we don’t get into trouble. The result has been a ton of useless or only mildly suspicious SARs filed just to be sure that we’ve covered our butts instead of focusing on the fairly few cases that really deserve federal attention.
That really depends, on how good the bank is at detecting such things, how small it is (large cash shows up more at small insitutions), and whether or not the bank knows the customer has a legit reason for regulary depositing cash. For a retail business, this would be unexceptional. For a customer with NVMS, it would be unusual, and may cause the FI to issue a SAR.
No, it’s my nickname at work. I’ll have to check that out.
$3000 is for a Negotable Instrument Log, which is not filed with the IRS but kept at the FI.
That’s a bad idea on the part of your FI. All they need to do is document that they detected the trans, investigated and considered a SAR in order to CYA. Regulators rarely question a judgement call, but they are now cracking down on FI’s that do nothing or have poor documentation of what they do.
Pretty much a SAR would generally not be completed for a total amount under $5000. But that’s just the total, $5000 a business day for a month could very well result in a SAR for $100K.
And, the amount of $2999 is often viewed with suspicion.
I’ll have to check that out.