In 2004, a Ponzi scheme scammer duped a gullible investor into opening an account at a large U.S. bank. Bank managers at the institution sniffed out the scheme and refused the application, as did two of the institution's nearby locations. The investor then opened an account out-of-state at the same bank, with none of the other branches the wiser. The victim of the scam, who eventually lost millions of dollars, unsuccessfully sued the bank for lost funds, according to Nelson Everhardt, president of Charlotte, N.C.-based Everhardt and Associates, and the former top compliance executive at Bank of America. All of...
Getting all the necessary know-your-customer information from foreign nationals who are private banking clients can be a daunting task, in part because many of the wealthy individuals who use these services are highly secretive.