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A bank filed a SAR reporting the deposit of U.S. Treasury checks to an account held by a deceased customer (a retired government employee) receiving monthly retirement benefits. The bank determined that its customer died in 1998. For two and one half years following the customer’s death, her…

The IRS-Criminal Investigation and the FBI conducted an investigation of several individuals involved in soliciting investments and deposits in a financial institution that falsely claimed Indian tribal authority and offshore-style banking privacy. The defendants used the Internet to solicit…

In early 2012, FinCEN conducted outreach to all of its state and local law enforcement partners, and asked for cases where FinCEN data played a useful role in their investigations. Below, in their own words, is an example of how FinCEN's stakeholders use FinCEN data. It has been edited only for…

The Federal Bureau of Investigation initiated a Material Support of Terrorism investigation based on a Suspicious Activity Report filed by a bank detailing a series of overseas financial transactions totaling millions of dollars. Two of the participants in these transactions were a United States…

The U.S. Customs Service in Chicago conducted an investigation of a Russian and Lithuanian organized crime group that was heavily involved in the smuggling of stolen luxury vehicles out of the U.S. into Europe. Independent analysis of a SAR filing showed suspicious behavior that related to the…

The defendants in this case first settled a civil suit with the government concerning the sale of $7 million worth of fraudulent “prime-bank” note investments to investors nationwide. In the scheme, investigators found that less than half the money was used to pay fictitious investment returns to…

In a case initiated from a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR), investigators found perpetrators were operating two separate fraud schemes. The first scheme, a check-kiting fraud, was only possible because of the complicity provided by the chief defendant’s wife who worked at the bank where the fraud…

An individual approached federal authorities and reported a story about drug smugglers. Agents questioned the individual's story and sought to authenticate his statements with queries in the BSA database. They instead found over a dozen CTRs and SARs that indicated the individual was involved in a…

A bank filed a SAR on an elected official from a suburban locality who structured transactions totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. The SAR triggered an investigation that confirmed the structuring and identified evidence that the elected official committed perjury while filing a bankruptcy…

A case initiated through a SAR review team identified a money remitter structuring transactions through multiple banks and accounts. Although registered withFinCEN, he did not properly license his business with state authorities. The banks initially became suspicious when he used his personal bank…