Trend data from depository institutions’ suspicious activity report (SAR) filings to Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) shows that this year’s filings – more than 1 million through June – are on pace to exceed the 2022 total of some 1.8 million filings.
SARs are used by depository institutions to report suspicious monetary transactions as required by the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) to flag potential terrorist financing, money laundering, and other financial crimes. FinCEN periodically reports aggregate data on SARs filed by industry.
The figures released Monday show a total of 1,827,917 SARs filed by depository institutions in 2022, up more than 400,000 from the year before. In 2023, a total of 1,002,463 SARs have been filed through the first six months of the year, more than half of the total filed in al of 2022.
FinCEN gives access to this data online.