I've read this story a couple times as reported by different news outlets. The federal prosecutor's press release is no more intelligible than the news story.

Thought that sounded familiar. There are more articles and another press release at

Prior Thread

Okay, but I still trying to figure out why they are saying the bank's failure to file CTRs is structuring absent an accusation that bank personnel made a knowing decision not to file them. The company certainly did not structure all of the transactions to avoid a CTR filing; per the U.S. Attorney's press release, some transactions reflected a reportable amount.

The innuendo about the bank employee really sucks. Over the course of my career I've seen a bank employee become the "primary" contact with a major customer to the detriment of the bank more than once, but the fact this company had a "pet" proves nothing about the integrity of his or her decision making. Moreover, in this case, every teller who prepared and handled the transactions is chargeable with knowledge. "I was just doing what I was told" won't cut it. However, if they're going to accuse bank personnel by innuendo they should just accuse them outright. If it's true, that would be the easiest part of their case to prove and things should fall into place pretty easily after that.

Maybe the fact that one of the bank's principals is a politico had an effect.

It seems terminology is being confused, even in the law enforcement documents/announcements.

That would fit. They think CTR's are still filed with the IRS, not FinCEN:

“Structuring” involves the breaking down of cash transactions in amounts of $10,000 or less for the purpose of avoiding a financial institution’s reporting requirements to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Sloppy, nothing more?

That plus they seem to confuse structuring and failure to file CTRs when transactions exceed $10,000. Both are wrong, but not the same thing.

"Maybe the fact that one of the bank's principals is a politico had an effect"

Surely, that can't be true.

As per the press release they paid the employees by bank check an then the employees cashed the bank checks?

I thought it said one large bank check was provided to the company rep, who then cashed the check; the cash was then used to pay employees. Not sure what that step was for.

This almost sounds like the prosecutor is using the pre-1986 laws to come up with the "caused the bank to fail to file" idea. Cases like this were fairly common back then. I'm sure West Virginia is not a hot bed of money laundering so maybe he/she did not know any better.

Here's an example of one of those cases.

Case

This seems to be centered on hiding the payroll(s) when you look at the accountant involvement.

This is from the FBI Press Release and helps explain the need for the CTR and the main reason for the prosecution.

Despite numerous occasions when multiple individuals appeared at the same teller window at the Williamson branch of Bank of Mingo to endorse cashier’s checks that exceeded $10,000 on Aracoma’s line of credit, Bank of Mingo routinely failed to file a currency transaction report, as required by law.

An investigation determined that the cash structured out of Bank of Mingo by Aracoma was used to pay the company’s payroll in cash, therefore avoiding the payment of employment taxes and also to make bribe payments to a former BrickStreet field auditor, Arville Sargent.

They pled guilty to structuring.

Yet, I remain fascinated. The quote from Retread's post of a month ago appears in this story verbatim:

Despite numerous occasions when multiple individuals appeared at the same teller window at the Williamson branch of Bank of Mingo to endorse cashier’s checks that exceeded $10,000 on Aracoma’s line of credit, Bank of Mingo routinely failed to file a currency transaction report, as required by law.

I'm fascinated because if none of the checks exceeded $10K individually, the transaction they describe simply isn't reportable. On the other hand, if one or more of the checks exceeded $10K and no CTR was filed, that would be on the bank's head, not that of the person who purchased the checks.

What these guys actually did that might have been structuring was issue multiple checks to multiple persons when all they needed to actually make a cash payroll was one check to one person. Cashing the "big check" would have been reportable, but, ironically, also eligible for exemption.

Consistent with prior remarks, I don't really think this prosecutor comprehends what happened here, but he or she still got these guys to plead guilty...

The clue is in the last sentence of this paragraph from a recent article.

Russell and Workman formed a longstanding relationship with the Bank of Mingo, on behalf of Aracoma, and from January 2009 through April 2012, Aracoma employees structured at least $2.2 million out of Bank of Mingo. Russell and Workman also enlisted the help of a number of individuals who agreed to appear at the Williamson branch of Bank of Mingo and cash cashier's checks, according to information from Goodwin. The cash from the bank withdrawals was later brought back to Aracoma's office to be used to pay cash payroll.

To consolidate this story in a single place:

August, 2013, DOJ filed charges against Aracoma Contracting, LLC for structuring.

October, 2013, the FDIC hammered out a consent order with the bank of Mingo for failing to establish an effective BSA/AML compliance program. The order noted that hundreds of CTRs had not been filed and mentioned the employee, but not in an entirely accusatory way.

February, 2014, Aracoma Contracting was sentenced for structuring.

December of 2014, the FDIC issued an order permanently barring the then former Bank of Mingo employee from the banking industry.

June of 2015, FinCEN announced of $4.5 million in CMP assessments in the aggregate against the bank.

The genesis for all of this was actions taken on behalf of what was undoubtedly described as "a good customer." If you gather up the paperwork, most of which is linked in this thread, you have the handouts for an excellent training session for the board of directors on the perils of not having a "Culture of Compliance."

those dang "good customers" get you every time...

But they never would do anything illegal because they've been customers for years!