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‘Continuing Activity’ SAR Failures Cost Wells Fargo Securities Branch

By Colby Adams

Wells Fargo's trading division in St. Louis "willfully violated" U.S. regulations by not reporting potentially illicit transactions by deadline on at least 50 occasions after retooling its anti-money laundering program 10 years ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday. Forty-five of the suspicious activity reports that Wells Fargo Advisors neglected to file by the 120-day deadline pertained to "continuing activity" by clients who had already triggered a SAR. The remaining five covered a one-time suspicious payment or the first of a related batch of payments, according to the SEC, which fined the brokerage $7 million for the infractions. After...

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