The sensational spy case of the penetration of the CIA by a Russian mole is proving the Bank Secrecy Act to be an all-purpose crime-fighting law. As it turns out, the money laundering early warning mechanisms the government has tried to create in banks actually work. The problem: no one in the government was listening when Dominion Bank of Virginia filed a suspicious transaction report about CIA bureaucrat Aldrich "Rick" Ames conducting frequent and unexplained large cash transactions. The "heads-up" from the Northern Virginia bank, where Ames had two checking accounts, came in 1991, long before Ames' costly and deadly...
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