Good afternoon,
I have a commercial customer that pays one man every week by check. The check is NORMALLY $9500.00. There have been times that it was 6 or 8K. The man cashes it every week.
The commercial customer also has a check that posts to his account at about the same time that states PAYROLL which is not cashed at our bank, but presented for payment from another institution.
The tellers state that the man cashing the check is a construction worker and he will break down the cash and give it to his helpers. The man appears to run multiple jobs for this commercial customer.
Is this structuring that benefits the customer cashing the check? Does it matter that he is handing out cash? The money appears to be legit. The commercial customer is in construction. He has larger balances, and the weekly payroll is about 35K. The worker appears to be legit. I just question why that amount and why not just pay him from the other PAYROLL check, and should I care that he may be handing out cash to his workers? I could assume they are just untaxed workers subject to construction sub end of the year statements.
Thanks in advance for your help.

"Is this structuring that benefits the customer cashing the check?" Possibly

"Does it matter that he is handing out cash?" Possibly

This might be a good time to reach out to the bank customer and make some inquiries.

Agreed, certainly seems like a good time to reach out to your customer to inquire as RockChucker has stated.

I would also be interested in the dates that the non-customer is cashing the additional item at the other FI, since you're aware that they're cashing a total of 10k from your customer in 2 separate checks. Could be a good way to get around the CTR if they're doing some at your FI and some at another, just as possible speculation, especially if they're done on the same business date.

The payroll check that I referenced is presented as a deposited item at another institution on our customer's account. I don't know if non-customer gets paid out of that account too. I assumed not since he cashes such large checks on this account, but that is a good point.
Other than the non-customer having employees that may not pay taxes, are there other things that I may be missing with him handing out cash? The check is made to him personally, not a company. Why write him a check from a business account if you weren't going to turn him for taxed funds? I have a hard time understanding how anyone truly benefits from this set up. Even non-customer handing out cash in the parking lot- how would that benefit him?
I will call the customer, but if I am failing to see a potential issue then please let me know.
Thanks,

Why write him a check from a business account if you weren't going to turn him for taxed funds?

so he can give his employees cash as most banks will not cash a check payable to a business. some employers pay employees in cash as some state laws require payroll in cash to the employee or provide time off cash the check. It may also be perceived this way by the non-customer as it may have been a state law in the past (see your state department of labor website). There is no proof that he has not paid taxes as you do not have access to his bank account.

Please note that I am not suggesting that this is not a SARabble event. I am not sure that you have enough info either way to decide but you are close. After the call you will have to make the call. If your customer is purposely cutting two checks to help him avoid filing; if you decide to file a SAR I would include you customer as a subject.

He may also be using undocumented workers.