The SAR Activity Review – By the Numbers

Twice a year, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) releases a report of suspicious financial activity, known as the SAR Activity Review. Their information comes from employees who work in a variety of industries that involve the handling of large amounts of cash – such as bank tellers, office clerks or casino managers. Employees are obligated to forward any fraudulent-looking activity to the FinCEN. The department then compiles a SAR review and searches for patterns that often lead to the investigation of major criminal activity, including terrorism financing and money laundering.

The latest review shows that suspicious activity reports from the two industries that traditionally file the highest number of them –depository institutions and money service businesses– have decreased in both since 2008. The other two reporting industries –casinos and card clubs, and securities and futures industries– have both seen slight increases.

Noteworthy reports from each of the four industries include:

- Depository institutions continued to report high numbers of Check, Mortgage Loan, and Credit Card Fraud, despite their overall decrease in suspicious activity. Of the 20 reported categories, Computer Intrusion increased by a hefty 51% and Terrorist Financing by 8%. Categories that saw decreases include Money Laundering, which slid by a small 1%, and Consumer Fraud Loan and Identity Theft, which both saw much larger decreases of up to 31%.

- Money Service Businesses had only one category that reported an increase in 2009: Money Transfer and Money Order Fraud, which continues to account for 93% of their suspicious financial activity. Traveller’s Checks and Currency Exchange on the other hand both saw decreases ranging between 40% and 45%.

- Casinos and card clubs increased their overall reports by 8%. The majority of reports continue to come from the Structuring category. Major increases were found in the following categories: Check Fraud (47%), Large Currency Exchange (24%), and Money Laundering (21%).

- Finally, securities and futures industries interestingly showed low reports on Money Laundering, but whopping increases in nearly every other category. These include: Mail Fraud (23%), Wire Fraud (39%), Other Transaction without Economic Purpose (41%), Wash or Other Fictitious Trading (78%), and most notably, Foreign Currency Futures (426%), Warrants (300%), and Foreign Currencies (151%).

*For more information and details please visit the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network site at: http://www.fincen.gov/news_room/rp/files/sar_by_numb_14.pdf