by Optima Compass | Sep 14, 2014 | Alerts
Money laundering prevention and compliance with OFAC goes beyond financial institutions. FinCEN proved this by announcing a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) on October 2, 2014, requiring that certain non-financial businesses in Los Angeles adopt measures to prevent money laundering. The GTO follows a September 10, 2014 historic raid on the Los Angeles Garment District where roughly 1,000 law- enforcement officials seized at least $65m in cash and arrested nine people. Several garment businesses allegedly helped drug traffickers ferry proceeds from sales back into Mexico. Because of the raid, the GTO requires businesses to apply comprehensive anti- money laundering measures that include transaction monitoring, customer identification, report filing and record retention. These primary obligations include secondary functions that are indispensable. The GTO imposes personal civil and criminal liability on business operators and others. Unfamiliar with anti-money laundering compliance concepts the businesses identified in the GTO, how can those businesses comply? Must they develop and apply an instant compliance program? Optima can help. With Optima’s AML Compass software, non-bank and non- financial businesses can record financial transactions, set alert rules that inform when customers have reached $3,000 in one day, identify potentially suspicious activity, file government reports and maintain records for 5 years. And that’s just the beginning! Optima’s “Compliance As a Service” solution provides a skilled AML analyst to monitor transactions in real time and assist businesses in making compliance decisions on the spot. Additionally, AML Compass makes OFAC compliance as simple as a click of a button- and the application of some monitoring rules, of course. Client Lists Optima provides AML compliance services to: Banks (domestic and foreign)...
