MONEY LAUNDERING: CHARACTERISTICS OF CURRENCY TRANSACTION REPORTS FILED IN CALENDAR YEAR 1992

• NCJ Number: 147360
• Author(s): E H Stephenson Jr; M L Eid; D M Leiss; M D Wiggins; H L Malone; B J Trotter; M C Dobrovich; A M Calice
• Date Published: 1993
• Length: 32 pages
• Corporate Author: US Government Accountability Office
• Sale Source: Azimuth Inc.; National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Type: Statistics
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Federal efforts to detect and track the flow of large deposits of money and monetary instruments were significantly enhanced with the enactment of the Bank Secrecy Act in 1970; Treasury Department regulations implementing the act require several reports, including the Currency Transaction Report (CTR).

Abstract

Financial institutions are required to file a CTR for each deposit, withdrawal, currency exchange, or other transfer that involves a transaction amount of more than $10,000. As of April 1993, 49.8 million CTR's had been filed, and the number of CTR's filed continues to increase. During calendar year 1992, 8.98 million CTR's were filed that reported $417.6 billion in currency transactions by businesses and individuals. Banks filed 98 percent of the CTR's, and over half of the CTR's were for transactions of $20,000 or less. Businesses accounted for 8.29 million (92.3 percent) of all CTR's filed and for $411.8 billion (98.6 percent) of the total dollar amount of reported transactions. The 100 businesses listed on the most CTR's during 1992 accounted for 1.2 million (13 percent) of the 9.2 million business records. These 100 businesses, primarily chain stores and restaurants, also accounted for $89.7 billion (22 percent) of the $411.8 billion transaction total reported for businesses. The bulk of the report is comprised of appendixes containing information on the exemption process for CTR's and statistics on CTR's filed. 6 tables and 2 figures