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Leak reveals $2T of possibly corrupt US financial activity

theguardian.com

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Re: Leak reveals $2T of possibly corrupt US financial activity

#21

Post by vorpalhex »

m-nolan wrote: post #2

"However, the filing of an SAR does not require the bank to cease doing business with the client in question." This feels broken. Was this intended to prevent competitors from falsely filing SARs against each other to freeze their business? What are the penalties for abusing this system?

A SAR just means activity is suspicious. That's it - a SAR is not by itself evidence of wrongdoing, just a report to take a deeper look.

"Hey, this persons makes mostly foreign transactions with vague companies" is a SAR. That's not a crime, and it may not be criminal behavior - it's just an indicator that someone should look closer.

Can you imagine if your bank closed your account and refused to do business with you, without any kind of trial or notification, just because you did something that triggered a fraud measure?

Or to put this another way, how many times have you had to call your credit card provider because they stopped a transaction just because it was suspicious, even when it wasn't?

Re: Leak reveals $2T of possibly corrupt US financial activity

#23

Post by mhh__ »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #14
jpgvm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So literally the only 2 publications remaining with a semblance of journalistic integrity that have proven to be beyond political bias? Sure, that makes complete sense. /s

Hmm that's curious. I'm a paid subscriber to Guardian online and occasionally subscribe to its weekly paper summary; I would agree with its journalistic integrity; while I agree with their perspective though, it actually gets too much even for me these days, and I would not call them "beyond political bias" by ANY stretch of imagination. If nothing else, they explicitly endorse candidates.

The notion of bias is totally meaningless. What you should worry about is truthfulness. Everyone is biased, some people lie even if that means being selective in the sources they use to build their narrative rather than outright fabrication.

I have read the guardian for my entire life, I am aware of it's biases but I would not continue to trust the newspaper if I believed it was lying.

It seems to be an American disease spreading throughout the world to accuse things of bias constantly, when the root issue is just falsehoods and being economical with the truth. A newspaper should aim to represent multiple views but should not shy from having the conviction to both be explicit about what the truth is and who they support.

Re: Leak reveals $2T of possibly corrupt US financial activity

#24

Post by me_me_me »

jaywalk wrote: post #17
xvector wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. If the reports are “years old” then there is no excuse for these to not have been dealt with.

Who is saying these haven't been dealt with? Filing a SAR doesn't mean the person is guilty, as the name indicates it's just suspicious.

I dunno, but

Collateral Damage, Snowden panama papers...

Imagine if they spend 10% of resources that they spent going after leakers punishing real perpetrators.

Re: Leak reveals $2T of possibly corrupt US financial activity

#26

Post by sailfast »

syspec wrote: post #4

> In a statement released earlier this month FinCEN condemned the disclosure of the leaked documents and said it had referred the matter to the US Department of Justice. > “The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is aware that various media outlets intend to publish a series of articles based on unlawfully disclosed suspicious activity reports (SARs), as well as other sensitive government documents, from several yea…

Well, yeah. The leaker signed an NDA. You of course take the risk that you will be punished by the NDA’s consequences that you sign unless you are using whistleblower statutes. That’s the whole point of the NDA.

Edit: you don’t publish your company’s proprietary source code and then expect you just walk away right? You’d be sued into oblivion. It’s important that people abide by their agreements. Whistleblower statutes exist to ensure protection when fraud, abuse, or other illegal activity occurs. I’m not clear if this actually meets that standard.

Re: Leak reveals $2T of possibly corrupt US financial activity

#27

Post by refurb »

syspec wrote: post #4

> In a statement released earlier this month FinCEN condemned the disclosure of the leaked documents and said it had referred the matter to the US Department of Justice. > “The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is aware that various media outlets intend to publish a series of articles based on unlawfully disclosed suspicious activity reports (SARs), as well as other sensitive government documents, from several yea…

I’m not sure why you think this is unreasonable.

It’s financial crimes. If someone leaked investigational records of say, the FBI, while they are investigating an extortion ring, that could seriously compromise any prosecution.

Seems reasonable to me to punish someone leaking information that was meant to be private.

Re: Leak reveals $2T of possibly corrupt US financial activity

#28

Post by sailfast »

m-nolan wrote: post #2

"However, the filing of an SAR does not require the bank to cease doing business with the client in question." This feels broken. Was this intended to prevent competitors from falsely filing SARs against each other to freeze their business? What are the penalties for abusing this system?

The Feds determine if the activity is illegal. SARS are filed as part of the bank’s duty to report and they are liable if they don’t report the activity. You want to err on the side of “more SARs” so you are covered.

But if they’re leaked - that means reputational damage risk is higher so you’ll get less reports from banks and likely make it a lot harder to see patterns of illegal behavior. That’s why this agreement is in place.

Re: Leak reveals $2T of possibly corrupt US financial activity

#29

Post by sailfast »

me_me_me wrote: post #24
jaywalk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is saying these haven't been dealt with? Filing a SAR doesn't mean the person is guilty, as the name indicates it's just suspicious.

I dunno, but Collateral Damage, Snowden panama papers... Imagine if they spend 10% of resources that they spent going after leakers punishing real perpetrators.

They... do? That’s what FINCEN is.

Re: Leak reveals $2T of possibly corrupt US financial activity

#30

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

pkphilip wrote: post #25

$2 trillion? I thought the latest figure was $35 Trillion - and thats just from the Pentagon https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pentagon-35-trillion-accounti...

This article seems to be carefully avoiding a very important contextual question - what's the expected value of these "accounting adjustments" for a large organization?
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