We have a customer that cashed his CD in last year and we gave him a cashers check for the payoff. Now once or twice a month he comes in and cashes the Cashiers check gets some cash and then gets another cashiers check for the remainder of the balance. This has happen about 3 times in the last month. I'm thinking maybe a SAR should be filed

If you believe the customer is chipping away at the CD proceeds check in this way to avoid a CTR filing for taking the cash all at once, you have the makings of a SAR.

If the customer doesn't have a conventional bank account and you believe he is handling the proceeds in this manner to manage the funds and avoid having an excessive amount of cash kicking around at home, I'd be able to argue that no SAR is warranted.

If he does have a conventional bank account, with your bank or elsewhere, you should consider telling the guy that you won't continue to enable his serialization of the proceeds.

We do not allow this type of exchange as we believe the reason they do it is to hide money from someone. Maybe they have a garnishment in the works.
I have also seen customers do this when they are applying for benefits and don't want the government to know that they have money.
I would file a SAR.

I would not file a SAR unless I thought what John suggested was happening. Although, I would not allow it to happen in the first place, so the discussion regarding whether or not a SAR was required would be a moot issue.

Had a similar situation a few years ago. We filed a SAR. When we finally got the customer to talk about what he was doing, he did admit that he was hiding money (I do not remember from who).

What every the reason, the activity is unusual, and if you do not get a believable explanation from the customer, I think it deserves a SAR.

Hiding money is not illegal depending on whom you are hiding it from.....

Unless you know for sure that he's going through a divorce, I'll join the "file a SAR" chorus. First off, let me remind the audience that we're not required to prove a crime. With that being said, I would characterize this as "Other - Transaction with no apparent economic..." Also, is he getting fee'd for each purchase? I'd tack on "Little or no concern for product performance, penalties, fees..."

Yes, hiding money is not necessarily illegal, but there's a good enough chance that it could be that SAR filing is warranted.

I'll second BC78a's notion to reach out to the customer to find out WHY he's doing this. I've gotten all sorts of self-incriminating corroborating explanations that way - FAFSA fraud, Medicaid application fraud, and even tax evasion.

After reading this thread, could the same be said if someone has withdrawn a large amount of cash (over threshold where a CTR is filed)and then visits their safe deposit box or goes to their safe deposit box and then makes a cash deposit (for amounts under the threshold)?

Local Banker, I have the same question. Hope someone out there has some input.

If a CTR was filed and I didn't think the funds originated from an illicit source, I wouldn't file a SAR. Others may disagree though.

If someone went into a SDB and deposited currency in excess of the CTR reporting threshold I would be contacting the customer about the origin/source of funds. If I thought it was reasonable, continued monitoring, but no SAR. If I didn't like the response, SAR filed. CTR in either case.

In response to the original post, the idea of filing a SAR on a practice the bank could easily put a stop to has always fascinated me. As discussed here and in many other threads, your bank can render the issue moot simply by saying that a cashiers check cannot be used to purchase a cashiers check.

To the second, the Examination Manual provides a relevant example of an apparent effort to avoid a reporting or recordkeeping requirement:

A customer accesses a safe deposit box after completing a transaction involving a large withdrawal of currency, or accesses a safe deposit box before making currency deposits structured at or just under $10,000, to evade CTR filing requirements.

Frankly, I question their logic in being suspicious of a trip to a safe deposit box after a withdrawal, as opposed to before a deposit. Whether it's before or after, if you suspect the customer is structuring, file the SAR. If you don't, then don't.

"structured at or just under $10,000"

That would require a SAR safe deposit or not.

Yeah, when they said the deposit was "structured," they sort of took the mystery out of the whole thing.

I question that logic as well, Ken. I would also echo your emphasis that the SARable occasion here is the structured transaction. I think examples like this one sometimes cause us to lose sight of this fact, because we get hung up on the use of the safe deposit box.

Just an update, we know the source of funds that went into the box and know that customer is depositing cash needed to cover checks on account and funds are being kept from spouse. Would you still file a SAR? I never said customer was structuring- I just said below reporting threshold although there was one deposit over threshold and we did file CTR for it. Deposits appear to be consistent with customer's explanation.

Our committee is at odds on whether or not to file.

Well I hope hiding cash from a spouse is not illegal as I think a lot of us would go to jail.

Although personally I'm only talking about an extra hundred hidden in my wallet

As per the post, he is not structuring and the source of fund are legit. Why would you file?