Feb.19, 2010

Using international trade to disguise illicit money transfers continues to be a favorite way of laundering money, a senior federal official told a large gathering of international bankers Thursday.

James H. Freis Jr., director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, told a crowd of more than 1,000 bankers, lawyers and other professionals that his agency is urging banks to get more specific in filling out suspicious activity reports to help investigators target the use of international trade transactions to launder money.

``Basic schemes include misrepresenting the price and quantity of goods and services -- over- and under-invoicing -- and invoicing the same goods or services more than once [double invoicing],'' said Freis.

He was the keynote speaker at the Florida International Bankers Association's anti-money laundering conference taking place at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami.

The two-day conference, which has drawn attendees from 40 countries, continues Friday.

According to Freis, some red flags in trade transactions include: A third-party paying for the goods, changes in letters of credits without a good reason or a bank customer's inability to produce invoices or documentation to back up a requested bank transaction.

John C. Rodriguez, president of FIBA, said the insights on trade-based money laundering are particularly relevant to Miami, a major international trade center. ``Trade-based financial activity is very vital to our economy,'' he said.

Freis also told the group mortgage loan modification fraud and foreclosure rescue schemes remain a key priority for his agency, which receives and reviews suspicious activity reports, or SARS, filed by banks and other financial institutions.

According to a newly released FinCEN report based on SARs, two types of schemes have been common.

In the first type, homeowners were conned into signing quit-claim deeds to their properties.

``The homes were then sold from under the former owners to straw borrowers, and the homeowners subsequently received eviction notices,'' he said.

In a second scenario, scammers pretended to have ties with lenders to convince distressed homeowners to pay large advance fees for modification services, ``but failed to take any action on the homeowners' behalf,'' Freis said.

Freis said FinCEN, a part of the Treasury Department, has seen a big problem recently with home equity conversion mortgages, or HECMs, a type of reverse mortgage popular with seniors who want to get cash out of their homes.

As with other mortgage-related frauds, the agency is seeing inflated appraisals and property flipping.

But regulators are also seeing seniors duped into buying financial products not in their best interest and outright thefts of proceeds of the reverse mortgages, he said.

``It is often difficult to discern that a fraud has even occurred until the victim is deceased, since a HECM loan is not due as long as the borrower is living in the house,'' Freis said.