The SAR Activity Review Issue 12 - FinCEN

Section 1 – Director’s Forum
James H. Freis, Jr.
Director, FinCEN
It is again my pleasure to present The SAR
Activity Review. This twelfth edition brings
several informative articles and many more
examples of how law enforcement agencies
are using the information that you provide to
discover and disrupt criminal enterprises and
protect the financial system. The information
collected through Suspicious Activity Reports
(SARs), Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs),
and the other forms required by the Bank Secrecy
Act (BSA) is used every day by authorized law
enforcement professionals, FinCEN, and other
regulators. Once again, I am pleased to share with
you examples of the value that BSA information
brings to investigations, criminal cases, and
regulatory analysis.
Since the last Review, FinCEN, with the support of Treasury Secretary Henry M.
Paulson, Jr, has launched a series of initiatives to make the administration of the
BSA more efficient for those in industry covered by its requirements and more
effective for those in the law enforcement and regulatory communities who rely on
this information. Secretary Paulson announced initiatives that support FinCEN’s
taking a fresh look at matching risk-based examinations to risk-based obligations,
examining issues surrounding Money Services Businesses (MSBs), looking at
ways to make FinCEN’s regulations more intuitive, and enhancing feedback from
FinCEN, and other government agencies to the various sectors of the financial
industry. (A broader discussion of these topics can be found on the new BSA
Regulatory Effectiveness and Efficiency section of our website.) Of these several
initiatives, one is particularly relevant to this publication: Feedback.
FinCEN continues to devote significant effort and seize appropriate opportunities
to enhance communication with the industries it covers to promote a common
understanding of the important role that BSA information plays in protecting the
financial system. The American people, through their Congress, made the publicpolicy
decision to rely on financial institutions to provide important information
concerning suspicious activities and certain financial events and transactions.
FinCEN, law enforcement, other regulators, and these financial institutions are
partners in this effort. No one is in a better position than those in the industry to
see and understand individual transactions. FinCEN has the privilege to collect,
analyze and store this valuable information both for its own use and for the