Sure they can. But how does the clerk handing out chips know that this guy is a repeat visitor?
I would guess it is transaction size (just below the threshold) and repeat transactions. The clerks are trained to alert security if they get a whiff of fraud. Then the experts take over.
But I do not know. Certainly the casino does not want to go to court and lose their money. I’d bet they are pretty good at spotting fraudsters.
I think you would agree that if I go to the casino and take out $9,900 in chips because I don’t want to have to make the casino report the transaction, nor do I want my name on it, is legal. If I continue to do that on a regular basis, for the purposes of evading the reporting, then it is illegal.
I agree with you that if the casino sees the same fucking drunk dude wander in every night and buy $9k worth of chips, they are required to report. But if he does so infrequently enough that no clerk should reasonably be required to remember him, then it is just like my first example. Just some dude, off the street, who doesn’t want paperwork. Nothing illegal; nothing to report.
A SAR does not mean a law was broken. It means a transaction is flagged for the government to scrutinize.
If you go to Las Vegas, withdraw $9,999 and lose it at the casino you have done nothing wrong at all (at least not legally…your life choices are a different question).
But you may have gotten the attention of the feds. They’ll look in to it and (probably) nothing will come of it.
Or, you might find yourself subject to an audit next year. No biggie. Just a random audit…
You changed at least one fact from the hypo. Pretend I am the alcoholic friend.
I didn’t withdraw anything from any bank account. The casino owner gave me unlaundered cash to walk into his casino to buy chips. I am on the video. I give no ID nor do I sign my name to anything. I could be Whack-a-Mole as far as anyone knows.
The clerk won’t make me fill out any paperwork because I didn’t meet the threshold for paperwork. Maybe she suspects that I intentionally chose an amount that wouldn’t require me to fill out paperwork, but that is not illegal nor unusual nor should it require a SAR.
There are no feds involved and nothing that will tip them off to anything.
That’s exactly when they fill out a SAR. That’s what a SAR is for.
They are not stupid. They get if the legal limit to fill out a report is $10k then everyone and their brother do transactions for $9,999. Trivial to sidestep the law.
Law enforcement is aware of that and has if covered with the SAR.
My understanding was that repeated transactions required an SAR. A one time, under the amount, gets an SAR? Okay, I’ll buy $8k in chips. SAR? At what point is following the law not suspicious?
Pretty sure you will have to make that case in court.
Pretty sure the casinos don’t want to go there.
Well, this is probably a discussion for another thread, but if the law says that I can go 70mph on the interstate, then that is fine. But if I comply with the law by going 69mph and they want to allege that it is suspicious that I just barely comply with the law, then what speed am I supposed to drive so as not to attract law enforcement attention and just live my life?
Well, I think you can see if you make a law with a defined threshold it is trivial for criminals to do their thing just under that threshold. That would make enforcement impossible.
What would you propose as a legal solution?
Again, probably a discussion for another thread, but legal is legal. In no other area of law do we do such a thing. Do you tell a 22 year old who is buying alcohol that yeah, this is doing it by the book, but we think that you are skirting too close to the legal age so that we need to keep a special eye on you. Or a contract for a home purchase by an 18 year old…meh, you are only six months from being too young to do this; lets have the feds investigate.
If they set a limit of $10k, then of course people are going to transact at $9,999. They are only following the rules set out by law, no different than a person who just turns 21 goes into a store and buys booze. It shouldn’t be illegal to follow the artificially created law.
“Legal” is, by definition, whatever the government says it is. It may suck, it may be shitty, but at the end of the day the government tells us what is “legal”.
I cited up-thread that SARs are a thing and casinos are beholden to them. The casino can embark on a 15-year legal odyssey that costs them $5 million dollars or they can write a SAR when a bad guy seems to be there.
If you were their attorney what would you advise?
Frankly, they make so much money from legal gambling I think they are thrilled to comply with the laws. They make more money having a safe and legal and “fair” casino that there is no profit in bucking the system.
To an extent they are right. What we are doing is just stopping them from getting easy access to funds.
We stopped a large flow of funds to a 'charity" that was known to fund Islamic terrorism, for example.
The main purpose is drug money laundering, terrorist financing is just a bonus.
I fully agree with the first paragraph. The government is free to pass goofy laws.
But our guy complied with them. There was no evidence that he was structuring his payments, say he came in three times a week buying $9,500 worth of chips. This dude walked in off the street and one time bought $9k worth of chips. It was under the threshold so we didn’t ask for ID. We never saw him before so we didn’t think he was structuring.
Maybe he is a hyper libertarian or a SovCit who doesn’t want the government in his business. And if we say that, yeah, $9,500 should have pinged the “bad guy” meter, then we just go down to the turtles. If we say that $7,500 is a good limit that the clerks shouldn’t report, then the word will get out and people will be buying $7,499 worth of chips which should then ping the meter.
A one time purchase is not a violation of any law.
FINcen is the agency in charge of Money Laundering, and the IRS is their enforcement & examination arm.
Nope, that is structuring, and illegal.
Yes, it is illegal and unusual and requires a SAR.
The issue is WHY are you doing a transaction under the reporting limit. In those case cases, you admitted it was to get around the limit, thus illegal. It is all about intent.
One $8000 trans- because well, you don’t tell anyone? Sure, NP.
There is no such “limit”. In fact, you are better off doing a $11K trans than a 9K trans. A +10K trans just means a CTR, no biggie. The law states it is illegal to structure your transactions to avoid the CTR limit.
Ahh…but the casino needs to issue a SAR…by law/regulation.
Mr. Lib is not breaking the law by getting $9,999 in casino chips but the casino is obligated to report his suspicious activity. And the casino will do so because they will almost certainly lose more by not reporting him than if they do.
What is suspicious about complying with the law? He doesn’t want the government to know about his private affairs, he wants to keep them private. Are curtains in homes suspicious?
I cited the SAR regulation above.
You can parse that better than I can (IIRC you are a lawyer).
So help me here. Pretend I am a libertarian who thinks that the government has no business in knowing what I do with my cash. By what you said, pretty much any cash transaction could be considered structuring, no?
I would say being a Libertarian has no bearing on anything. You (general “you”) are beholden to the laws of the state and country.
I do not think anyone is saying taking out $9,999 and using that to buy chips in a casino is illegal (it’s not).
But it will bring scrutiny to you.
I get not liking that but what is your alternative?