A customer of ours does not have any deposit accounts with us, just a safe deposit box. I was just informed by our head teller this customer just visited her safe deposit box and was walking out of the branch counting cash. I know that keeping cash in a safe deposit box requires a SAR if there is $5,000 involved. But I have no idea how much cash is in the box or how much could possibly be involved in the suspicious activity.

Any suggestions?

Why would keeping $5000 cash in a SDB trigger a SAR? There could be many reasons that someone might want to safeguard their money in a SDB. I would make a record of the incident and monitor for any additional information that might warrant a SAR filing. That single fact alone doesn't seem to warrant a SAR IMO.

I agree with Brenda. As weird as it sounds some people feel that their money is safer in a SDB than in an FDIC insured account. However, we do not allow non-customers to have just a SDB. Out of curiousity, does your SDB policy state that they cannot keep cash in it?

What about tax evasion?

How would you know that tax evasion is the reason? As said above, people may keep cash in the box for many reasons. It's not necessarily suspicious activity. You would need more information to determine if a SAR would be warranted.

Cash in a safe deposit box certainly should trigger some enhanced due diligence, but it does not justify an automatic SAR filing. The problem is that, since you have no other relationship with this person, you are not in a position to do much investigating. One of the "red flags" mentioned in the BSA/AML Exam Handbook is:

Safe deposit boxes or safe custody accounts opened by individuals who do not reside or work in the institution’s service area, despite the availability of such services at an institution closer to them.

Just like it's a poor practice to sell official checks for cash or send or receive wire transfers for non customers, it's an equally poor practice to rent them a safe deposit box. Many banks simply will not do it.

How would you know how much cash is in the safe deposit box?

As everyone above has said, it is not against the law to keep money in a safe deposit box and since they do not have a transaction account with you, you have no way of knowing how the money was acquired. It could be they cash all of their payroll checks and only deal with cash. Nothing illegal about that but also not very common. I was told by the FBI and Homeland Security that unless I have knowledge that the money was obtained thru suspicious circumstances, that there is nothing to report.

However, that is also the reason we require all safe deposit box owners to have an account with us. No account, no SDB.

I'm not questioning whether it's against the law or not. I'm questioning how you would know there is cash in there, much less how much. Do your SDB customers not have privacy when they go into their boxes?

Not that I have anything to hide in my box, but there's no reason for bank staff to know what I have in there.

Some safe deposit box clients are not all that circumspect about flashing wads of cash being placed in or removed from their boxes, and some almost seem to be "in your face" about it.

You don't have to be looking over their shoulders, sometimes, to know what's going on.

Funny...I just performed a BSA compliance exam in which someone had taken a bunch of cash out of his safe deposit box and purchased a CD. Sometime before that he had cashed in a CD and took cash because the credit union refused to match a rate offered by another financial institution on-line. He put the money in the box. No SAR filed...he is, according to the employees, just a grumpy old man who wanted more than what the CU was willing to offer but wasn't willing to go on-line and get it. So to make a point, he withdrew the money for awhile, held it in his safe deposit box and then bought another CD when he chilled out.

Just thought I'd offer up one of the many possible scenarios why someone would keep money in a safe deposit box. I agree...money in a box is not reason enough by itself to justify a SAR.