If you aren't certain that the Bank Secrecy Act job market is unusually active these days, ask anyone who has recently taken an executive position in a compliance department facing regulatory scrutiny. The message they're hearing: move quickly or move out of the way.
The division of investigatory and enforcement powers between two U.S. Treasury Department agencies has resulted in few monetary penalties for anti-money laundering compliance lapses by money services businesses and tension between the two agencies, say current and former government officials.
The Internal Revenue Service is understaffed and unable to effectively conduct Bank Secrecy Act examinations on the thousands of non-bank financial companies for which it has oversight responsibility, according to compliance professionals.
Knowing and adhering to federal prosecution guidelines and giving "unfettered cooperation" to the U.S. Justice Department in criminal investigations are a bank's best defenses against indictment and can help secure a less painful deferred prosecution agreement.
U.S. Army Major John Cockerham made a lot of money selling his influence as a contracting officer to guarantee contractors would win government bids, according to federal investigators. But he was tripped up by his efforts to launder $9.6 million in bribes, authorities say.
An Internet pharmacy racketeering operation that generated more than $126 million illustrates how accounting firms and other so-called gatekeepers can help money launderers, banking compliance professionals say.
The bill would prohibit using more than $10,000 in funds "legitimate or otherwise" to facilitate so-called specified unlawful activities, crimes used to establish money laundering cases.
A financial institution should ask for a written request from any law enforcement agency that asks it to keep an account open, according to the U.S. Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
U.S. Representative William Jefferson pleaded not guilty today to federal charges that he solicited more than $400,000 in bribes to advance business dealings between U.S. companies and Nigerian officials.
In a June 5 letter to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Miami attorney Frank Rubino, who represents Casa de Cambio Puebla, said federal agents on May 16 seized the companys funds deposited at a Miami branch of Wachovia Bank.
John Imhoff, the deputy chief of the IRS criminal investigations unit, speaks about the divisions efforts to investigate tax and money laundering-related narcotics cases and its struggles to get the most out of its resources.
The agency is not checking names against a comprehensive terrorist watch list, and is slowed by a manual review process, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network have created a working group to examine an IRS criminal investigation division practice of sending letters to bank customers identified in suspicious activity reports.
The IRS criminal investigation division has used the letters during investigations for more than a decade to initiate contact with financial institution customers, particularly when the SARs indicate structuring may have taken place.
Jewelry dealers left an AML seminar last week in New York with unanswered questions about their Bank Secrecy Act responsibilities. The IRS representative who led the session said she couldn't give certain answers in part because she doesn't yet know the particulars of the industry.
More coordination between the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is needed in combating money laundering among non-bank financial institutions, according to a report issued by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Dec. 15.