News
Without Better Use of Narratives, SARs Fail to Show Extent of Mortgage Fraud
By Kieran Beer
printThe current design of federally-mandated suspicious activity reports makes it difficult for banks to report important information tied to suspected mortgage fraud, say former law enforcement agents and consultants. Under U.S. regulations, banks must inform the U.S. Treasury Department of possible mortgage fraud through the same regulatory filing they use for suspected terrorist financing and money laundering. The reports, known as SARs, allow compliance staff to detail information on potential mortgage schemes through free-form input fields. But the forms fall short in directing bank compliance staff to provide law enforcement agents information on potential co-conspirators, including mortgage brokers and appraisers,...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
Bank compliance departments continue to underreport Internet Protocol and e-mail addresses in their regulatory filings to the U.S. Treasury Department despite repeated requests for such disclosures from federal officials.
The U.S. Treasury Department's financial intelligence unit fined a now-defunct New Jersey money transmitter $125,000 for repeatedly and willfully violating Bank Secrecy Act requirements.
The U.S. Treasury Department finalized rules Thursday requiring federal home-loan banks to implement anti-money laundering controls and report suspicious activity.
Mexican officials will extend until February an upcoming deadline for nonbank companies to implement anti-money laundering controls, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
Lawmakers should expand financial safe harbor protections to allow banks to better share their suspicions about money laundering and its predicate crimes, a top U.S. regulatory official said Sunday.
The number of suspicious activity reports citing possible mortgage fraud fell in 2012 for the first time in over a decade, according to a report published Tuesday by the U.S. Treasury Department.
As a deadline for the implementation of electronic Bank Secrecy Act reporting approached earlier this month, hundreds of financial institutions questioned whether they had too little time to comply with the requirements.
The New York County District Attorney's Office is creating a financial intelligence unit in an effort to expand its use of Bank Secrecy Act reports, the agency's highest official said Monday.
The U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Board disclosed long-awaited enforcement actions against JPMorgan Chase for Bank Secrecy Act failures Monday - the same day the regulators punished the company for trading violations.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has opened dozens of financial crime investigations since the 2010 formation an internal team that reviews suspicious activity reports, a New York official said Monday.
Once confined to large banks, the practice of forming teams to review suspicious activity reports ahead of regulatory filing deadlines is increasingly being adopted by midsize financial institutions, say compliance professionals.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Monday it plans to close a "regulatory gap" by requiring non-bank mortgage lenders to report suspicious activity to the country's financial intelligence unit.
A U.S. Treasury Department advisory detailing red flags of reverse-mortgage scams takes another step in placing more responsibility for identifying such frauds within banks' anti-money laundering programs, say consultants.
When it comes to reporting ongoing suspicious activity, even following federal regulations to the letter may not be enough to stave off enforcement actions, say compliance professionals.
The investigative arm of the Internal Revenue Service, charged with tackling intricate tax and money laundering cases, is shifting resources to handle a mushrooming mortgage fraud caseload, according to current and former special age
The key to catching mortgage fraud, says Joan Ferenzcy, is face time. Far too often, says Ferenzcy, head of Freddie Mac's fraud investigation unit, compliance officers and investigators fail to be proactive in the investigation process and instead passively make written requests for information.
Financial institutions filed 46,717 suspicious activity reports about potential mortgage fraud in fiscal year 2007, a 31 percent increase in the reports from the previous year, the FBI said Tuesday.
Suspected cases of mortgage loan fraud reported by financial institutions jumped 42 percent in 2007, marking the fourth consecutive year of double digit increases, the U.S. Treasury Department said.
U.S. Representative Barney Frank said he will continue to push for easing the burden of Bank Secrecy Act compliance for financial institutions this year as the House Financial Services Committee turns its attention toward the widening U.S. mortgage and credit crises.
The flood of suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by financial institutions each year may be hurting law enforcement efforts to investigate financial crimes, Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Thursday.