Good points. In this case, I was attempting to refer to he's concerned he'll get hacked, or a trusted associate w/ access to the money would run off with it.
Shady? How have we gotten to a place where carrying a modest amount of cash like $11k is "shady"? I suspect you're not familiar with how many unbanked people there are in this country, or what kind of predatory fees for banking services are levied upon folks with non-existent or low credit ratings.
It's not only that the money is sketchy, you'll most likely won't know who you are selling to and how it will be used. Conscience might bite you in the ass.
You might need to establish ID, source of funds, etc., or beyond a certain limit cash transactions might just not be legal. Failure to comply might then lead to all sorts of unpleasantness.
The suspicion arises because you're withdrawing to cash. They don't care about Electronic funds transfers because they know the ultimate destination. Large denominations of cash without justification or with refusal to justify are grounds for elevated suspicion, and anything going as high as 10k, especially broken up over several transactions, combined with an agitated customer in response to any refusal to do so, is generally considered a red flag. Financial institutions are, in essence, a fiscal surveillance network for law enforcement.
Pro-tip: Announce you are aware of the CSR/SAR they now have to file, and apologize for the inconvenience. Tends to put them at ease.
Be aware, you'll still draw elevated attention for a while. Isn't AML grand?
I definitely feel like this is one of those situations where "if you have nothing to fear you have nothing to hide" actually applies.
I couldn't get a mortgage without a thorough check that income was indeed real income, the idea that billions in assets could be "attested" and not actually audited is incredibly shady.
They are saying that their is no downside, outside of running foul of laws and regulators, for banks to take money without review instead of flagging transactions as suspicious.
Your response is about additional benefits for them taking the money without questions.
The same position is true for UK and EU as for USA: a firm handling money can't accept it unless they've done anti-money laundering checks. This includes e.g. identity checking, and checking both sender and sometimes also recipient for criminal associations.
The problem is there are a number of scans revolving around returning accidental extra money. IE someone sends you $500 too much, they ask for it back. You send it back and then they somehow reverse the original transaction, etc.
Accepting illegitimate funds without awareness doesn't appear to be a criminal offense, based on my understanding (short of falling afoul of money laundering). The punishment typically just involves returning the funds.
Unless there's compelling evidence to definitively demonstrate their awareness of the funds' misappropriated source, it seems challenging to establish grounds for substantial punitive action in this situation.
It's not a crime if the source is legitimate, but if you ask me to hold on to a bag of cash which your friend will retrieve tomorrow, then it's reasonable for me to ask if the cash is legit. Otherwise, I may be harmed by being part of a crime.
It's no different for a financial institution holding onto a bag of cash.
Fair enough! As I said, I don't know a ton about this stuff, so always good to have knowledge shed for me.
Out of curiosity, what do regular banks (e.g. BOA in my example) do to avoid this problem? Just basic background checks and reporting suspicious behavior to the FBI or SEC or something?
Most of the time the illegality comes in if there’s some secret involving criminal activity. “Pay me $100K or I spill the beans about how you’re embezzling.”
I would agree, I don't really understand the logic in this thread. You're literally giving the check to a bank who is then going to have read it and look at what it's for and who you're sending the money too - and part of their job is to decide if it is legitimate, or if they should ask you about it, etc. If you put something extremely suspicious or flat-out illegal in the memo line, I would presume they're obligated to at least report it, or else they could be on the hook if it turns out it was actually true and they let it go with no questions asked.
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