FinCEN recently released its “Year in Review” for its 2023 fiscal year. Much of it focused on the value in various BSA filings. For example, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations indicated that over 87% of all investigations have a BSA filing(s) connected to the primary subject. Additionally, more than one-third of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s active Complex Financial Crime investigations had a direct link to Currency Transaction Reports and Suspicious Activity Reports.
In addition to the regulatory agencies, there are also national security agencies as well as federal, state and local law enforcement agencies with access to BSA data. Surveys of these agencies with such access revealed overwhelmingly that BSA data:
- Is…valuable to the detection and deterrence of illicit activity;
- …helped in identifying new leads
- …revealed previously unknown information
- …supplemented or expanded known information
- was …used to open a new investigation…
This should serve as a pat on the back and help reinforce that results do come from all the time, energy and effort financial institutions put into maintaining an effective Bank Secrecy Act program.
Published
2024/07/26
