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Official: Cash triggered Spitzer probe By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer
28 minutes ago



Gov. Eliot Spitzer's role in a prostitution scandal grew out of a public corruption inquiry triggered by his movement of large amounts of cash from several bank accounts to one that operated by a call-girl ring, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.

Spitzer was the initial target of the investigation and was tracked using court-ordered wiretaps that appear to have recorded him arranging for a prostitute to meet him at a Washington hotel in mid-February, the official said.

The official spoke to The Associated Press condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

The case started when banks noticed the frequent transfers from several accounts and filed suspicious activity reports with the Internal Revenue Service, the official said. The accounts were traced back to Spitzer, prompting public corruption investigators to open an inquiry.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey was made aware of the investigation because it involved a high-ranking political official.

The inquiry found that Spitzer was a repeat customer with the Emperors Club VIP, the official said.

The Feb. 13 tryst took place in the Mayflower hotel, where Spitzer rented a second room for the woman under another name, the law enforcement official said. The official said Spitzer had to sneak past his State Police detail to get to her room.

Charges against Spitzer have not been decided and it depends mostly on "how aggressive the U.S. attorney wants to be," the law enforcement official said. Charges could including anything from Mann act violations to banking violations to possibly wire fraud.




Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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I cringed when I saw that report on Yahoo this morning Smash!

Me, too. Yes, they did what they were supposed to do; however the public should never have heard about thart part of it.

I wish they hadn't reported that SARs are filed with the IRS.

All anyone has to do is pull up the SAR form on the internet and they can see where it is mailed. I don't think that is a big secret.

Here's the part I have a problem with.



Not only does it scratch the edge of confidentiality but that and the previous highlighted topic shows other possible criminals how to avoid NOT being reported. Next they will be writing an article on how to structure without being reported!

If you peruse some the conspiracy group websites, there are already plenty of articles on this subject available.

True, but that means they already have the idea in their head if they are looking at those sites. This is out in the view of the common public which can then plant the seed.

Stay tuned. There are more details. Pretty soon, we should know the name of the bank.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-stspitzerbank0312,0,4637246.story

Also, here is an interesting article about the flow of reports.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8211

Wow, that's unbelievable. That blog website even includes a diagram of the whole reporting process.

As Randy said above, anyone can look at what the reporting requirements are for a SAR. None of the SAR reporting requirements are secret. Anyone who goes to the IRS website can read all about what we're required to report. What continues to amaze me is that the IRS and other 'government officials' are disclosing SAR contents and bank names as if it's the bank's fault these people get into trouble for participating in illegal activity.

this "official" should be investigated & prosecuted for disclosing a SAR was filed.

any of us would be investigated.

Here's another version of the story on reporting. Bless their hearts. They got most of it right.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-fina..._515683_26.html

"Millions of SARS are generated each week and flow into the Internal Revenue Service nationwide, but an analyst at the regional IRS office in Hauppauge noted Spitzer's particular SAR and singled it out for attention to criminal investigators, the sources said."

Last I checked we weren't anywhere near filing millions of SARs each week. I think the last numbers I looked at for the nation overall were around 600,000. That is a little misleading.

Anyone else notice an increase of cash structuring since this story broke?

I have.

I've alerted the bank employees that they may have questions coming in from customers & have extra "Facts You Should Know" Brochures on hand.

What did I tell you? Now they are saying there were two banks involved, and one of them is named on page two of the following:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/nyregion/12legal.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

Stay tuned. The other bank's name should come out soon.

So much for prohibited disclosure of SARs.

"The federal officials, who had been briefed on the case, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the continuing criminal investigation and because it can be a crime to disclose the contents of a suspicious activity report."

You think??

And my favorite:

"If the governor was simply trying to conceal his activities from, say, his wife, it would be considered different from trying to deceive federal authorities.

'There are innocent reasons for structuring transactions that need to be considered,' Mr. Kelberman said."

WHAT???

Retread, the other bank's name has already been released on WSJ.com, accordingly, we all have two banks name. One more thing, the Wall Street journal released the fact that Riggs bank filed SARs on Sen. Bob Dole in 2004.

But SARS aren't addressed in the pamphlet. What do we do? Tell the tellers to say "no comment?"

"SARs" themselves are not discussed in the "Facts You Should Know" Brochure/pamphlet.

& yes - basically all a Teller can say is "this is all the information I have"

Remember this?

http://www.fincen.gov/unauthorizeddisclosureofbanksar.pdf

At least one of the bank names is disclosed in the redacted copy of the complaint, but somebody failed "redaction 101" because they did not redact one of the bank names. Therefore, the AUSAs filing the complaint are guilty of unlawful public disclosure of the identity of a SAR filer. Since the redacted copy of the complaint is public information, I don't suppose we can really fault the news media, even if they have made a circus of this whole thing, and they have slaughtered the facts on CTR and SAR reporting.

Also, see this.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/12/eveningnews/main3932968.shtml
I'm not sure how closely we track sandwich purchases, but apparently some software will do that for you.

Where do you order the "Facts you should know" pamphlet?

I understand that FinCEN is working on putting out an "official" version. Until then, the most consistently reliable source is http://www.banksecurity.com

I've never tried to paste a link in here, but here goes....

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/12/eveningnews/main3932968.shtml

Apparently Katie Couric had a guy on her show last night demonstrating BSA/AML software.

This is the 2nd time I here a referrence to the term PEP!!!Inferring that the fact that Spitzer is a PEP is one of the reasons he was caught - I'm not sure about your institutions, but I'm pretty sure that as of today the term PEP is usually used to describe foreign political figures, which Spitzer is not. I'm curious to know how many of you out there are designating our domestic political figures as PEPs, and therefore performing EDD, etc.