The Greater Boston Chapter of ACAMS (the Boston Chapter) is fast approaching its one year anniversary in June. The Boston Chapter anticipates achieving the milestone century mark of 100 chapter members during the second quarter of 2011. On behalf of the Boston Chapter's executive board, I would like to thank our members for turning out in record numbers at our events over the past year. We promise to continue providing programming that takes into account the cutting edge, "hot" topics in the anti-money laundering and in the compliance industry.
True to form, our members (as well as potential members) turned out in force to attend our last event on February 16, 2011, entitled "Money Laundering Investigations," at Goodwin Procter, LLP over breakfast. The event was co-hosted by two members of the Drug Enforcement Agency Money Laundering Task Force—Ryan Talbot of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation division and John Grella of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ryan first walked the audience through various case studies and scenarios. Notes were anxiously taken when he provided practical information for what makes the best suspicious activity reports. While Ryan discussed both the theoretical concepts and the practical tips, John Grella of the Drug Enforcement Agency brought home the point of real world examples in more stark terms. John showed a video of actual surveillance from investigations that he and Ryan had completed. The crowd viewed money drops and actual arrests as well as the transfer of high profile prisoners. The video and accompanying stories by Ryan and John were a great way to bring the theory to reality.
Movies are the theme of our next event as well. The title of a recently released Hollywood movie It's Complicated, can be applied to the ongoing oversight by AML specialists working with AML laws and regulations. Recently, FinCEN announced a final rule reorganizing all of the BSA rules and regulations. The new rule will result in a new Chapter X of Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Intended to streamline the BSA regulations it will change all of the BSA citations.
The seminar will include three speakers and address the relationship between new Chapter X and old Part 103 of CFR Title 31, as well as several newly proposed BSA regulations and areas of continuing concern. Topics that will be addressed are:
- Reporting Cross Border Electronic Transmittal of Funds;
- Proposed changes to the definitions of MSB's;
- Sharing of SARs;
- Section 314(b) Voluntary Information Sharing and Keeping Safe Harbor Protection;
- Beneficial Ownership Issues.
If you are interested in attending great events like these, please join our chapter by visiting our web page at http://www.acams.org/greater-boston-chapter/. If you have any questions about the chapter or any ideas and suggestions for events, please feel free to contact any of the executive board members listed on the website or email acamsboston@gmail.com.
