Regulators hit Miami Gardens credit union with cease and desist order

 

 

By Brian Bandell

South Florida Business Journal

Federal regulators issued a cease and desist order against North Dade Community Development Credit Union for violations of anti-money laundering laws.

Such enforcement actions against credit unions are rare. This is the only cease and desist order issued by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) so far this year.

The credit union has only $5.8 million in assets. It was “well capitalized” on June 30, an improved from its “undercapitalized” status a year ago.

The NCUA order on Aug. 29 gave it 30 days to suspend all transactions for money services businesses that aren’t within its geographic area of membership. Credit unions are only allowed to deal with customers in pre-defined geographic areas. In the case of North Dade Community Development, the area is the north-central part of the county.

The regulatory order also told the credit union to stop all business with money service businesses until it implements adequate Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money laundering and Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) compliance. This includes establishing criteria for identifying high-risk members, detecting when transactions involved prohibited countries or individuals, and timely filing suspicious activity reports and currency transaction reports.

It was given 30 days to find an employee responsible for this job, conditional upon approval by regulators

Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at:

http://.launderingmoney.com and on twitter at: http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney also on http://moneylaunderingworld.blogspot.com

Alert over rise of ‘money mules’ used to launder criminals’ cash

Criminals  are increasingly using “money mules” to launder cash through bank accounts, new research has revealed.

Often those who get involved are innocently lured into the practice without realising they are being duped by criminals to pay money into their personal accounts and transfer it on, allowing illegal gains to disappear into the system.
Sometimes those involved know exactly what is happening but there are concerns fraudsters are persuading innocent people to do personal favours or are offering what appears to be a genuine job to people in return for a small fee but, in fact, they are laundering cash.
In a recent development, the UK’s fraud prevention service said companies are also being used, with crooks hijacking an established name to dupe victims into illegally moving money under the pretext they will be working for the well-known company.
Sending emails and other information claiming to be from an established firm with a good name encourages the victim to believe they are being paid to do a genuine role.
Often those carrying out the frauds only realise what has been going on when they are contacted by their bank. By this time the fraudster has disappeared and the victim is left to shoulder the blame and persuade the authorities he or she had no idea what was going on.
One such student, who cannot be identified, answered a job advert on the internet for staff needed to work at home.
“Obviously, extra amounts of money for only a few hours work per week from home seemed ideal,” she said. “I never questioned it, as there seemed nothing untoward: I would be a sales and delivery agent for some legitimate goods, working for a small company.
“For arranging some ‘sales’ and sending the goods, I’d receive a cheque for pay and costs, and then forward money to my ‘employer’. The first few months were fine when – after a very successful month – I got a phone call from my bank saying that the cheque for my pay and costs that had just been paid in was fraudulent and investigations had proved that the account from which it was drawn was fraudulent too.
“I was out of pocket and suspected of being ‘in on it’ of course.”
Figures from Cifas, the UK’s fraud prevention service, show there has been a 12 per cent hike in the numbers of accounts legitimately obtained but later used fraudulently, in the first ten months of this year, in comparison with 2010. Over the same period there has been a six per cent increase in the misuse of personal current accounts.
Cifas says a large proportion of these frauds display the hallmarks of money laundering.
In one recent case the boss of a well-established travel company discovered that crooks had hijacked her company’s good name, sending out emails claiming to be from her company, giving the impression the victim was working for her.
She said: “Although they’re using my corporate and not my personal details to defraud another company, the situation is practically identical: duping others into acting criminally under the pretence of working for me. All, of course, using the internet – making it even harder to track the culprits down and stop them.”
Richard Hurley, Cifas communication manager, said: “Whether they are referred to as scams or frauds, the effect is the same: people are duped into committing fraud. This often leaves the innocent victim who acted as the mule needing to prove that they were duped. This can be a truly traumatic experience for the mule victim: committing fraud can have some very serious consequences, as businesses have a regulatory and commercial requirement to suspend or close accounts that are involved in fraud.
Mr Hurley added: “Being asked to receive and then pay monies while keeping a fee for your services – whether for an individual or company – will almost always prove to be nothing more than a scam designed to use your good name and financial records to mask someone else’s criminal greed. And it is the mules, even the innocent ones, not the fraudsters, who are left to sort out the consequences.”

Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at http://www.launderingmoney.com/ and on twitter at : http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney http://moneylaunderingworld.blogspot.com/   and http://launderingmoney.com/

Southern Command General identifies money laundering as one of the threats to the U.S from Latin America

Cross border criminal organizations specializing in drug, arms trafficking and money laundering are the principal threat to the United States in Latin America, a top US general said Friday.

"I do not see any conventional military threat to the United States from the region," General Douglas Fraser told a conference organized by the University of Miami. "So my concerns then become... very non-traditional.

The threats come from "transnational criminal organizations and the impact they are having on politics, the economy, and societies throughout the region," he said.

Fraser, who heads up the US military's Southern Command, said corruption makes it difficult to fight these organizations, which continue to grow and strengthen, especially in Mexico and Central America.

In some countries, he said, "endemic" corruption aids the activities of the criminal gangs.

"Law enforcement organizations are not respected, the judiciary systems lack the ability to investigate, convict, and put in prison those who are detained," said Fraser.

"All of that brings to the region a sense of impunity, and that has a significant impact on the overall security problem."

Fraser also noted that Iran continues to try to increase its diplomatic and commercial influence in the region, although it is not yet seen as a security threat.

Fraser noted that Iran had almost doubled the number of embassies in the region in the past five years, established cultural centers in 17 countries, and is supporting anti-US efforts in the area."

But, he said, "from a security standpoint, I have not seen a significant connection. My primary concern remains their historic relationship with Hezbollah."