Over $3000.00 cash - Cashier's Check

Had an interesting transaction today; hopefully someone can help?

Customer came in and made a $5000.00 cash deposit into their business account. Customer then, via tickets, made a $5000.00 transfer from their business account into their personal account. Customer then, via ticket, made a $5000.00 withdrawal in the form of a Cashier's Check.

I was told by our Fraud Department that I had to fill out the form for a customer purchasing a Cashier's Check for more than $3000.00 in cash. While I can see the Fraud Department's point, techinically, the customer DIDN'T purchase a Cashier's Check with cash; they did it via withdrawal from their account. My suggestion, rather, was to fill out a SAR.

All of the above was to leave a "trail" for business purposes. My other argument was: what if the customer made the deposit, then left and did the transfer via online banking, then came into a different branch to do the withdrawal. To me, that would be even more suspicious.

I'm not here to argure with our Fraud Department, but am curious: do I truly need to fill out the special form?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

What "speacial form" are you referring to? Filing a SAR seems appropriate here.

Might they have been meaning the monetary instrument log?

Yes, I would log it but I don't know of any form. Perhaps its an internal form?

CTR?

I would enter it on the monetary instrument log.

I think CTRs are $10,000?

Should be on the monetary instrument log for purchases on instruments between $3,000 and $10,000 with cash. Even if a customer brings in cash and deposits it and then writes a check to purchase a monetary instrument, its supposed to go on the log.

For the Monetary Instrument Log, we tell staff to think of it this way: if the customer arrived with cash and left with a monetary instrument, then it goes on the log. It doesn't matter what complicated financial gymnastics occurred in between and how many accounts.

If the OP's bank is like ours, we have an internal firm that the branches complete and send me. It has all the pertinent information for our monetary instrument log