Oct. 16, 2006 News Archive

FinCEN Director Praises Banks' Suspicious Reporting
Bank Secrecy Act data provided by financial institutions is a powerful tool for FBI investigations, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Director Robert W. Werner told a meeting of bankers on Oct. 9. Werner said the FBI had recently reviewed Suspicious Activity Reports that were coded as suspected terrorist financing and found that 20 percent of those SARs contained subjects of open FBI terrorism investigations. Werner said this was "incredibly impressive given the difficulty of detecting terrorist financing activity." He praised the quality of the SAR filing not only for terrorist financing, but also for narcotics trafficking, money laundering and other fraudulent activity. After high profile enforcement actions, Werner noted that there is a spike of filing activity that has produced quality information as bankers go back and review their records from a new perspective. He also told bankers that BSA filing patterns are used to produce geographic threat assessments that assist law enforcement in allocating limited resources and understanding the nature of the illicit finance threats in their jurisdictions.