Inside Asian Gaming

May 2016 inside asian gaming 31 Unlike the Philippines, casinos in the United States are subject to some of the toughest anti-money laundering regulations in the world. This mostly stems from the September 11 attacks, which saw financial crime become intertwined with the financing of terrorism and thus a matter of national security. It isn’t likely that fear of an Financial Action Task Force blacklisting will work to generate a comparable sense of collective purpose in the Philippines. But it doesn’t have to. Basic reporting would do for starters. The US Bank Secrecy Act is the governing AML law in America. It requires that banks and other financial institutions, casinos and card clubs included, report every transaction or aggregate of related transactions that amount to US$10,000 or more in a 24- hour period. What makes this particularly effective is that “financial institution” is defined very broadly. It also takes in securities and commodities dealers and traders, remittance and cash-transfer businesses, insurance companies, loan and finance companies, operators of credit card systems, dealers in precious metals, stones and jewels, virtual currency and related industries and elements of the luxury property market. These Currency Transactions Reports (CTR), as they’re called, are neutral from an investigative standpoint and are generated automatically in most cases. They apply to all commercial and tribal casinos with at least $1 million in annual gaming revenue. In Focus It was revealed, for instance, that any Rizal bank branch can handle transactions of US$400 million or more without any red flags going up at the central office. Another intriguing element of the case is how the money was allowed to leave the branch in the first place since the Bangladesh Bank had issued an order to stop payment. A rigorous reporting regime Following the money, US style Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are something else entirely. These are required of any transaction or related transactions of $5,000 or more that smell fishy. Perhaps a dealing lacks a legitimate business purpose or could amount to an evasion or violation of a law or regulation. Unlike the CTRs these are secret in all cases. Customers are not told that what they’ve done has been deemed “suspicious.” And the government does not disclose when or in what manner SARs used. More than 1.5 million Suspicious Activity Reports were filed in 2015, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the US Treasury Department’s AML watchdog. It was a record for a single year. Since 2001, more than 17 million have been collected. The casino industry filed more than 40,000 SARs last year, and more than 100,000 over the past three years. Without revealing details FinCEN says most transactions it hears about in this way are attempts to avoid triggering a standard CTR. Others are more nefarious and include attempts to conceal narcotics transactions, to support international fraud schemes, to launder gains from real estate fraud or to move money for other illicit purposes. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that around 16% of all its pending investigations have related Banking Secrecy Act filings. They figure in one way or another into 42% of pending drug cases, 33% of “transnational organized crime” cases, 32% of cases involving “complex financial crime” and nearly 18% of international terrorism cases. More than 1.5 million Suspicious Activity Reports were filed in 2015, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the US Treasury Department’s AML watchdog. It was a record for a single year. Since 2001, more than 17 million have been collected.