On 7/7/2020, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued advisory FIN-2020-A003 to alert financial institutions to potential indicators of imposter scams and money mule schemes, which are two forms of consumer fraud that have been discovered so far during the COVID-19 pandemic. This advisory contains descriptions of imposter scams and money mule schemes, financial red flag indicators for both, and information on reporting suspicious activity. Specifically, BSA Officers should ensure that any SAR being filed in relationship to this advisory include the key term “COVID19 MM FIN-2020-A003” as well as selecting SAR field 34(z) for “Fraud - other” as the associated suspicious activity type.
The full FinCEN advisory can be found here.