We had a customer who closed out a CD for $ 12,000+. They took the payout in the form of a bank check. Two days later, they return with the bank check and deposit all but $ 5,000 into their checking account, with the $ 5,000 being taken as cash back. About 90 minutes later, the customer goes to another branch and makes an $ 8,000 cash withdrawal from their checking account. So our system will aggregate these transactions and a CTR will be filed, but based on this customer's activity, should we conjecture that they were structuring these transactions to evade a CTR filing, thereby triggering a SAR filing?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

It's anyone's guess what goes on in the minds of our customers. But it's hard to figure out what reasonable explanation there might be for this pattern other than structuring.

I'd file.

Sometimes I just want to take one of these people aside and explain the facts of life to them. That what they are doing looks like structuring and that structuring is illegal. I would not, of course, tell them that their activity will result in a report that could be more of a problem than the CTR they might be avoiding.

A CTR would not be required for the first transaction (redeeming of the CD), however, the second transaction (the structured transaction) would require a CTR since you have knowledge that it exceeds the $10,000 limit.

Read this an see what you think:

http://www.bankersonline.com/articles/v05n11/v05n11a3.html

If it walks like a duck. If it quacks like a duck. Maybe it's a Duck!