Money Laundering Laws

After a thorough scrutiny of the provided case study, it is evident that the Continental National Bank of Miami violated statutory laws on money laundering. The bank, mainly, broke the provide laws on Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) compliance and filing of reports. As a compliance officer and in agreement with AML & FATF guidelines, I would recommend as follows. The bank pays a Civil Money Penalty (CMP) for this offense as stipulated by the statutory penalties law. Secondly, the bank conducts a new customer due diligence (CDD) exercise to ascertain the identities of its customers (FATF, 2012).

Many things may have prevented the bank from complying with its original consent order. First, the bank may have failed to develop a program for monitoring compliance in record keeping and reporting as stipulated in the FATF guidelines. In particular, the bank may have failed to reach the following standards about its program on BSA compliance. First, it may have failed to create an internal control system for assuring ongoing compliance. Secondly, the bank might have denied an independent compliance testing exercise by bank personnel or outside party as required by AML. It also may happen that the bank did not appoint individuals responsible for coordinating for monitoring daily compliance with the BSA (Levy, 2015). 

The second reason that may have prevented the bank from complying with the original consent order is a failure to file a report within 15 days after request or reportable transaction. The third reason is a failure by the bank to maintain copies of the filed reports for five years after the date of filing. Finally, it may happen that the bank submitted its report to a different body other than the Commissioner of Internal Revenue as required by the Anti Money Laundering (AML) law (GPO, 2009).