La décision du Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) reprend en détail ceux qui peuvent être les points faibles d'un dispositif anti-blanchiment*.

« FinCEN has determined that, from 2004 through April 2017, UBSFS willfully violated anti-money laundering (AML) program requirements and willfully violated the requirement under Section 312 of the USA PATRIOT Act to conduct ongoing due diligence on correspondent accounts for foreign financial institutions....
due to weaknesses in its automated monitoring system, UBSFS failed to adequately monitor foreign currency-denominated wire transfers conducted through commodities accounts and retail brokerage accounts. UBSFS also failed to hire and retain sufficient AML compliance staff to meet its obligations under the BSA. As a result of insufficient staffing, the Firm had a backlog of cases, which hindered its ability to investigate and report suspicious activity in a timely manner. Finally, UBSFS also violated its statutory requirement to conduct ongoing due diligence on foreign correspondent accounts. »

On notera les éléments suivants :

1)  Trop de comptes étaient détenus par des sociétés de domicile : 

« UBSFS failed to develop sufficient policies and procedures to address the AML risks associated with providing financial services to shell companies, including the potential for straw ownership and risks related to the commingling of funds. UBSFS did not have adequate procedures for detecting red flags relating to certain transfers of funds among accounts at UBSFS. The Firm had no mechanism to detect large money movements with little to no securities trading, a commonly known red flag for potential money laundering in brokerage accounts. »

2) Selon le FINCEN, il faut faire attention aux indices suivants en fournissant des services bancaires à des sociétés de domicile :

• « Payments have no stated purpose, do not reference goods or services, or identify only a contractor invoice number ; 
• A company’s purported goods and services do not match the company’s profile based on information previously provided to the financial institution; 
• Transacting businesses share the same address, provide only a registered agent’s address, or raise other address-related inconsistencies ; 
•  An unusually large number and variety of beneficiaries receive wire transfers from one company ; 
•  Frequent involvement of beneficiaries located in high-risk, offshore financial centers ; and 
•  Multiple high-value payments or transfers with no apparent legitimate business purpose. »

3) Alors que UBS devait fournir des services de brokerage, les clients, surtout domiciliiés à l'étranger, utilisaient UBS pour leur trafic de paiement :

« UBSFS also failed to develop sufficient policies and procedures to address the AML risks associated with foreign clients’ use of brokerage accounts that offered banking-like services. Both the Miami and San Diego branches of UBSFS had a significant number of foreign clients, many of whom used their accounts to conduct a high volume of money movements with minimal trading in securities. This is another example of UBSFS’s failure to account for a higher-risk category of customer using securities accounts for the purpose of moving funds rather than for trading purposes. » 

4) Les comptes utilisés pour du trading de matière premières étaient aussi utilisés pour faire des paiements sans que l'identité des bénéficiaires et des donneurs d'ordre des paiements ne soit saisie dans les systèmes. Ce qui confirme que de nos jours une banque ne peut pas se concentrer simplement sur son client mais doit identifier les personnes avec qui il conclut des transactions bancaires :

« A customer could send and receive wires denominated in foreign currencies through the customer’s commodities account. UBSFS’s AML monitoring system failed to capture critical information about these foreign currency-denominated wires, such as sender and recipient information and the country of origin and destination.
The gap in the automated monitoring system applied to thousands of wire transfers amounting to tens of billions of dollars sent or received through commodities accounts, including transfers to and from countries known for heightened money laundering risk. While UBSFS analysts were able to access sender and recipient information and country of origin on a case-by-case basis through other UBSFS systems, this was not sufficient oversight to monitor large volumes of transactions for suspicious activity in compliance with the BSA. The weaknesses in monitoring meant that it was possible for an unknown third-party residing in a country known for money-laundering risk to transfer foreign currency into a customer’s commodities account, and for that customer to then transfer these funds to another party in a country known for money-laundering risk, without the Firm’s surveillance system reviewing these transactions. » 

5) Absence de contrôles sur les activités de banque correspondante :

« UBSFS failed to implement a reasonably designed procedure for conducting ongoing periodic reviews of correspondent account activity to determine whether the activity was consistent with the type and purpose of the account, as well as the anticipated account activity. As a result, some foreign financial institution correspondent accounts were not reviewed to ensure that the customer information was reliable, current, and appropriately rated for risk. »
 

*Source : site du FinCEN