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On Monday, as part of the Treasury Department's Counter Fentanyl Strike Force, FinCEN, in partnership with the IRS Criminal Investigation (CI), announced a new initiative to combat the illicit trafficking of fentanyl into the United States. The “Promoting Regional Outreach to Educate Communities on the Threat of Fentanyl” (or PROTECT) series of FinCEN Exchange sessions will be held through the remainder of 2024 in U.S. cities that are highly impacted by the opioid epidemic.

The series is specifically designed to work with regional and local banks who are deeply connected to their communities and offer unique perspectives on the opioid crisis, and will focus on how law enforcement can best support their efforts to monitor activity that may be tied to the illicit trafficking of fentanyl. At these exchanges, federal officials brief on information critical to tracking these illicit financial flows, including typologies and red-flag indicators of fentanyl-related activity, and discuss what types of information are particularly valuable when financial institutions report suspicious activity.

The PROTECT series is being launched in collaboration with other government partners, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, various U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and local law enforcement agencies.

The Boston event in the PROTECT series was conducted on Monday, bringing federal agencies and law enforcement authorities from the Boston area together with representatives from the financial industry for a discussion on ways to deepen collaboration and enhance the value of suspicious activity reporting to counter illicit fentanyl trafficking. FinCEN and law enforcement representatives highlighted the significant value that Suspicious Activity Reports contribute to law enforcement efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking, and financial institutions shared their observations on money laundering flows and tactics used by narcotraffickers and their enablers.

The OCC has posted a list and schedule of workshops designed to meet the needs of new directors, experienced directors, and senior management of national community banks and federal savings associations wishing to review fundamentals or get critical updates. Two series of workshops have been scheduled throughout the year:

• Basic Series, which includes Building Blocks (1.5 days in person or 3 hour virtual workshop)
• Risk Management Series, which comprises:
  • Risk Governance (1 day in person or 3 hours virtually)
  • Credit Risk (1 day in person or 3 hours virtually)
  • Operational Risk (1 day in person or 3 hours virtually)
  • Compliance Risk (1 day in person or 3 hours virtually)
  • Capital Markets (1/2 day in person)

The schedule of the workshops and online registration are available on the OCC's website.

The Treasury Department has announced that OFAC has imposed sanctions on two Russian individuals and three Russia-based entities for facilitating weapons transfers between Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to promote U.S. government objectives to disrupt and expose arms transfers between the DPRK and Russia and to build upon sanctions imposed by the Department of the Treasury and the Department of State related to DPRK-Russia arms transfers, including the transfer and testing of DPRK-origin ballistic missiles for Russia’s use against Ukraine.

For identification information on the designated individuals and entities, see BankersOnline’s May 16, 2024, OFAC Update.

The Securities and Exchange Commission this morning announced its adoption of amendments to Regulation S-P to modernize and enhance the rules that govern the treatment of consumers’ nonpublic personal information by certain financial institutions. The amendments update the rules’ requirements for broker-dealers (including funding portals), investment companies, registered investment advisers, and transfer agents (collectively, “covered institutions”) to address the expanded use of technology and corresponding risks that have emerged since the Commission originally adopted Regulation S-P in 2000.

The rule will become effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, with compliance dates detailed in the rule.

• Fact sheet

Yesterday, the Department of the Treasury reported that OFAC targeted the Ortega-Murillo regime’s repression of the Nicaraguan people and its ability to manipulate the gold sector and profit from corrupt operations. OFAC imposed sanctions on three Nicaragua-based entities, the Training Center of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in Managua (RTC); Compania Minera Internacional, Sociedad Anónima (COMINTSA); and Capital Mining Investment Nicaragua, Sociedad Anónima (Capital Mining), pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13851, as amended.

Treasury also reported that OFAC sanctioned Ali Yagoub Gibril and Osman Mohamed Hamid Mohamed, pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14098, for leading the Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) war campaign in the Darfur region of Sudan, which has caused civilian casualties, including children.

For identification information on the designated entities and individuals, see BankersOnline’s May 15, 2024, OFAC Update.

The Treasury Department reports that OFAC has designated one Russian individual and three Russia-based companies involved in an attempted sanctions evasion scheme in which an opaque and complex supposed divestment could have unfrozen more than $1.5 billion worth of shares belonging to U.S.-designated Russian oligarch Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska.

In June 2023, Deripaska coordinated with Russian national Dmitrii Aleksandrovich Beloglazov, the owner of Russia-based financial services firm Obshchestvo S Ogranichennoi Otvetstvennostiu Titul (Titul), on a planned transaction to sell Deripaska’s frozen shares in a European company. Within weeks of this coordination, Russia-based financial services firm Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Iliadis (Iliadis) was established as a subsidiary of Titul. In early 2024, Iliadis acquired Russia-based investment holding company International Company Joint Stock Company Rasperia Trading Limited (Rasperia), which holds Deripaska’s frozen shares.

Yesterday, Beloglazov, Titul, and Iliadis were designated pursuant to E.O. 14024 for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy. Rasperia was designated pursuant to E.O. 14024 for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Iliadis.

For identification information on Beloglazov, Titul, Iliadis, and Rasperia, see BankersOnline’s May 14, 2024, OFAC Update.

FinCEN has announced it has joined the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in jointly proposing a new rule that would require SEC-registered investment advisers (RIAs) and exempt reporting advisers (ERAs) to establish, document, and maintain written customer identification programs (CIPs). The proposal is designed to prevent illicit finance activity involving the customers of investment advisers by strengthening the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) framework for the investment adviser sector.

This proposed rulemaking complements a separate FinCEN proposal in February 2024 to designate RIAs and ERAs as “financial institutions” under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and subject them to AML/CFT program requirements and suspicious activity report (SAR) filing obligations, among other requirements. That proposal cites a Treasury risk assessment that identified that the investment adviser industry has served as an entry point into the U.S. market for illicit proceeds associated with foreign corruption, fraud, tax evasion, and other criminal activities. Together, these proposals aim to prevent illicit finance activity in the investment adviser sector and further safeguard the U.S. financial system.

The rule, if adopted, would require RIAs and ERAs to, among other things, implement a CIP that includes procedures for verifying the identity of each customer to the extent reasonable and practicable and maintaining records of the information used to verify a customer’s identity, among other requirements. The proposal is generally consistent with the CIP requirements for other financial institutions, such as brokers or dealers in securities and mutual funds. Comments on the proposal will be accepted for 60 days following publication in the Federal Register.

• Fact Sheet on proposal
• Publication and comment period update: Scheduled for publication in the 5/21/2024 Federal Register, with comments accepted through 7/22/2024.

The Federal Reserve Board has reported its release of a summary of the exploratory pilot Climate Scenario Analysis (CSA) exercise that it conducted with six of the nation's largest banks.

The summary describes how these banks are using climate scenario analysis to explore the resiliency of their business models to climate-related financial risks. Participating banks took a wide range of approaches in this exercise to consider the possible implications of different physical and transition risk scenarios. The exercise highlighted data gaps and modeling challenges that arise when estimating the financial impacts of highly complex and uncertain risks over various time horizons.

The banks that participated in the exercise were Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.

The exercise was exploratory in nature and does not have capital consequences. Drawing on lessons learned from the exercise, the Board will continue to engage with participating banks regarding their capacity to measure and manage climate-related financial risks.

OFAC has released and will publish on May 10 an interim final rule to amend the Reporting, Procedures and Penalties Regulations (the “Regulations”), to require electronic filing of certain submissions to OFAC and to describe and modify certain reporting requirements related to blocked property and rejected transactions. In particular, the rule would require use of the electronic OFAC Reporting System for submission of reports related to blocked property and rejected transactions, remove the mail option for certain other types of OFAC submissions, describe reports OFAC may require from financial institutions for transactions that meet specified criteria, and add a reporting requirement for any blocked property that is unblocked or transferred.

Additionally, OFAC is clarifying the scope of the reporting requirement for rejected transactions, in part to respond to comments received on the interim final rule OFAC published on June 21, 2019 to amend the Regulations. The interim final rule also modifies the procedures for requests relating to property that is blocked in error and updating the Regulations with respect to the availability of information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for certain categories of records.

The rule also clarifies that persons may submit a petition for administrative reconsideration to seek removal of a person or property from the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons or any other list of sanctioned persons maintained by OFAC. OFAC is also adding a description of reports OFAC may require financial institutions to provide about transactions that meet specified criteria to aid in the identification of blocked property. Finally, OFAC is making several technical and
conforming edits.

The rule will become effective 90 days after publication (August 8, 2024). Comments on the interim final rule will be accepted for 31 days after publication (through June 10, 2024).

Yesterday, FinCEN issued an Advisory to assist financial institutions in detecting potentially illicit transactions related to Islamic Republic of Iran-backed terrorist organizations. The Advisory highlights the means by which certain terrorist organizations receive support from Iran and describes several typologies these terrorist organizations use to illicitly access or circumvent the international financial system to raise, move, and spend funds. It also provides red flags that may assist financial institutions in identifying related suspicious activity.

Recent events have underscored Iran’s involvement in and financing of terrorist activity in the region. Iran seeks, among other goals, to project power by exporting terrorism throughout the Middle East and beyond by financing a range of regional armed groups, some of which are U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations or Specially Designated Global Terrorist organizations. These terrorist organizations include Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, and several Iran-aligned militia groups in Iraq and Syria.

FinCEN requests that financial institutions reference this advisory in SAR field 2 and the narrative by including "IRANTF-2024-A001" and selecting SAR field 33(a) when filing SARs related to matters discussed in the Advisory.

• Advisory FIN-2024-A001