A Guest Blog by Professor Moyara Ruehsen

Today we are very pleased to welcome guest blogger Moyara Ruehsen, PhD, CAMS, CFCS, who is  an Associate Professor and Director of the Financial Crime Management Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. For more than 20 years, Professor Ruehsen has taught financial crime-related courses on a variety of topics including money laundering, trade-based financial crime, corruption, proliferation financing, terrorist financing and cyber-enabled financial crime.  She has published articles and book chapters on a variety of topics related to threat finance and is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and a Certified Financial Crime Specialist. Professor Ruehsen also consults for the U.S. government, multilateral organizations and the private sector. She served for several years on the Editorial Advisory Board of Money Laundering Alert, and the Middle East Task Force of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists, or ACAMS.

For an extremely entertaining and illuminating discussion by Professor Ruehsen of how popular TV and movies get money laundering right (and wrong), see here.

This blog post takes the form of a Q & A session, in which Professor Ruehsen responds to several questions posed by Money Laundering Watch about the critical topic of cyber-enabled financial crime. We hope you enjoy this discussion, which addresses how cyber-enabled financial crime threatens financial institutions and their customers. –Peter Hardy
Continue Reading  Cyber-Enabled Financial Crime and Money Laundering

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) just issued another Advisory pertaining to two consumer fraud schemes exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This Advisory focuses on “imposter schemes” and “money mule schemes, ”which we discuss below.

This most recent Advisory is the latest in a string of pronouncements relating to the pandemic by FinCEN, which has stated that it regularly will issue such documents. As we have blogged, FinCEN issued an Advisory on May 18 regarding medical scams related to the pandemic, and issued a companion Notice that “provides detailed filing instructions for financial institutions, which will serve as a reference for future COVID-19 advisories.” On April 3, 2020, FinCEN also updated its March 16, 2020 COVID-19 Notice in order to assist “financial institutions in complying with their Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic, and announc[ing] a direct contact mechanism for urgent COVID-19-related issues.”

The most recent Advisory again provides a list of potential red flags that FinCEN believes that financial institutions should be monitoring for, in order to detect, prevent, and report such suspicious activity. As we previously have commented: although such lists can be helpful to financial institutions, they ultimately may impose de facto heightened due diligence requirements. The risk is that, further in time, after memories of the stressors currently imposed by COVID-19 have faded, some regulators may focus only on perceived historical BSA/AML compliance failures and will invoke these lists not merely as efforts by FinCEN to assist financial institutions in deterring crime, but as instances in which FinCEN was putting financial institutions on notice.

Further, the most recent Advisory suffers from the fact that its list of red flags for imposter schemes is best directed at consumers themselves, rather than at financial institutions offering services to consumers: many of the red flags pertain to anomalies in the communications sent directly by fraudsters to targeted consumer victims – information that financial institutions rarely possess.
Continue Reading  FinCEN Issues Advisory on COVID-19 and Imposter and Money Mule Schemes

On May 18, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) issued an Advisory “to alert financial institutions to rising medical scams related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This [A]dvisory contains red flags, descriptions of COVID-19 related medical scams, and information on reporting suspicious activity.” According to FinCEN, “[t]his is the first of several advisories FinCEN intends to issue concerning financial crimes related to the COVID-19 pandemic.” A Spanish-language version of the Advisory is here.  FinCEN also issued a companion Notice to the Advisory that “provides detailed filing instructions for financial institutions, which will serve as a reference for future COVID-19 advisories.”

Although FinCEN has made clear that future advisories will follow, the May 18 Advisory and Notice are themselves the latest in a string of prior pronouncements by FinCEN relating to the global pandemic. As we have blogged, FinCEN updated its March 16, 2020 COVID-19 Notice for the stated reason of assisting “financial institutions in complying with their Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic, and announc[ing] a direct contact mechanism for urgent COVID-19-related issues.” FinCEN, of course, is not the only regulatory body addressing Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) issues implicated by COVID-19. As we also have blogged, the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) recently issued a paper entitled “Covid-19-Related Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing – Risk and Policy Responses” This FATF Paper follows up on the April 1, 2020 statement issued by FATF’s President on COVID-19 and measures to combat illicit financing.

The Advisory is surprisingly specific when describing the possible scams and potential red flags that FinCEN believes that financial institutions should be monitoring for in order to detect, prevent, and report such suspicious activity. In addition to providing a list of red flags, the Advisory provides specific case studies demonstrating the real-world concerns surrounding these scams. Although this level of detail is helpful to financial institutions when integrating the Advisory into their own programs, it also seems to impose potential heightened due diligence requirements on financial institutions when dealing with companies engaged in providing medical services and supplies.
Continue Reading  FinCEN Issues Advisory on Medical Scams Relating to COVID-19

On May 4, the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) issued a paper entitled “Covid-19-Related Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing – Risk and Policy Responses (“Paper”). This Paper follows up on the April 1, 2020 statement issued by FATF’s President on COVID-19 and measures to combat illicit financing, on which we previously blogged. As we also have blogged, the COVID-19 pandemic will cause many financial institutions to face significant Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) issues because of the unfortunate confluence of increased fraud schemes seeking to capitalize on the pandemic, coupled with the fact that many BSA/AML compliance teams will be straining to maintain an adequate amount of staff and degree of communication.
Continue Reading  FATF Issues Paper on COVID-19 Enhanced AML and Fraud Risks

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a perfect storm for money laundering and fraud. As we have blogged, financial institutions subject to the Bank Secrecy Act are facing increased incidents of fraud and must catch and report suspicious or illegal activity while compliance teams face potentially reduced staff and are trying to work remotely. The

First Post in a Two-Post Series on Recent FATF Activity

Members presumably working from home, the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) was active last week, first issuing its 3rd Enhanced Follow-up Report & Technical Compliance Re-Rating of the United States’s Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) and Counter-Terrorist Financing (“CTF”) (the “United States Report”) measures and, later, a statement from its President on COVID-19 and measures to combat illicit financing (the “Statement”).

In this post, we will discuss FATF’s Statement on the Coronavirus. In our next post, we will address FATF’s United States Report.

The Statement, issued on April 1, 2020, functions as both a high-level reminder to financial institutions of methods for continuing to carry-out know-your-customer (“KYC”) and other AML obligations while “facing confinement or strict social-distancing measures” and a warning to financial institutions to remain vigilant to increases in fraudulent activity – and resulting money laundering – so often associated with crises like the current Coronavirus pandemic.

The thrust of the Statement is an acknowledgement that the Coronavirus pandemic has created a perfect storm for money laundering where rapid and high-volume financial transactions from myriad sources for myriad purposes are occurring simultaneously with the almost spontaneous and enormous downsizing in personnel to monitor those transactions as many AML professionals shelter from home. Indeed, we recently blogged on this very threat posed by COVID-19 to financial institutions’ AML and anti-fraud systems (that is, the combination of increased fraud and a reduced capacity to guard against it) when discussing FinCEN’s latest pronouncement on COVID-19 issues.
Continue Reading  Financial Action Task Force Update: Statement on COVID-19’s Implications for AML Programs

Some Commentary on the Unfortunate Relationship Between Crisis and Fraud

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) released today an update (“Update”) on its March 16, 2020 COVID-19 Notice, on which we previously blogged, for the stated reason of assisting “financial institutions in complying with their Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic, and announc[ing] a direct contact mechanism for urgent COVID-19-related issues.” Further, the Update states that “FinCEN is committed to promoting the success of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), including the need to facilitate expeditious disbursal of CARES Act funds.”  This post will summarize briefly the Update, and make a few high-level comments.

The COVID-19 pandemic — pernicious, unpredictable and continually evolving — resists facile pronouncements.  With that caveat, it is rational to predict that many financial institutions subject to the BSA will face significant issues in the very near future because of the unfortunate confluence of increased fraud schemes seeking to capitalize on the pandemic, coupled with the fact that many BSA/AML compliance teams will be straining in this age of “social distancing” and enforced working remotely to maintain an adequate amount of staff and degree of communication needed to catch and report suspicious activity, among other obligations under the BSA.  Stated otherwise, we are entering a time of maximum fraud and a reduced capacity to stand guard.

Further, as the pandemic continues and then recedes, the previously existing fraud schemes will come to light — just like during the financial crisis of 2008, when the Bernie Madoffs of the world were exposed — because desperate investors will be demanding their cash back, and some soon will discover that their money actually was stolen a while ago.  Investigations, prosecutions and litigations will ensue.

Turning to the Update by FinCEN, we summarize here greatly.  In our view, the Update provides some generally helpful information, but little in the way of concrete guidance.
Continue Reading  FinCEN Issues COVID-19 AML Update for Financial Institutions

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) just issued a release, entitled “The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Encourages Financial Institutions to Communicate Concerns Related to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and to Remain Alert to Related Illicit Financial Activity.”  Given the topic and the simplicity of the release, this post merely provides the release in