Suspicious Activity Report News

FDIC Financial Institution Letter FIL-32-2008 (April 10, 2008) notifies banks that they can access the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) publication "The SAR Activity Report by the Numbers."

Highlights of the report include the following:
1.  During 2007, Depository Institutions filed 324,694 SARs, down from more than 500,000 in both 2005 and 2006.
2.  In the first six months of 2007, Check Kiting filings increased 58% from the corresponding six months in 2006.
3.  Mortgage Loan Fraud SARs increased 35% from 2006.
4.  Identity Theft SARs are increasing.
5.  Texas depository institutions ranked third in number of filings for 2007, behind California at #1 (740,553 SARs) and New York (341,426).  Texas depository institutions filed 191,600 SARs in 2007).

List of top 10 categories of SARs for 2007:
1.  BSA/Structuring/Money Laundering - 48.02%
2.  Check Fraud - 10.54%
3.  Other - 8.87%
4.  Counterfeit Check - 4.93%
5.  Credit Card Fraud - 4.79%
6.  Mortgage Loan Fraud - 3.90%
7.  Check Kiting - 3.34%
8.  Identity Theft - 2.41%
9.  False Statement - 2.38%
10.  Defalcation/Embezzlement - 1.91%

Link to FinCEN Report:  http://www.fincen.gov/sars/sar_by_numb_09.pdf

(ag) April 22, 2008, in BSA/AML