Identifying Human Trafficking Crimes – Follow the Money

Author: Deborah Crawford

Human trafficking or smuggling is a horrific crime, and unfortunately a $9 billion industry in the United States. As a financial institution, you may be wondering what it has to do with your business? The smugglers and traffickers must get paid, which means financial crime money may be going through your institution.

Smugglers are bringing humans into the United States often times at outrageous amounts of money. Victims are often lured with false promises of fame or job opportunities. When they get into the United States, the families are threatened if they don’t comply and are forced to begin engaging in sex exploitation.

As a financial institution you may be wondering how to identify and respond to these types of crimes. There are red flags you can look for to detect potential human trafficking activities.

  • Unusually large cash deposits
  • Wiring money to a foreign country
  • Out of the ordinary transactions

Money laundering involves hiding the source of criminal money that comes into your financial institution. Follow the money – if the accounts, cash, wires, or ACH’s don’t make sense report it to your BSA officer.

Human trafficking crimes are a big issue for our country, and it’s a big issue for financial institutions. Take five minutes to view my video blog to learn more about his horrific issue.

Deborah Crawford

Deborah Crawford is the President of Gettechnical Inc., a Virginia based training company. She specializes in the deposit side of the financial institution and is an instructor on IRAs, BSA, Deposit Regulations and opening account procedures. She was formerly with Hibernia National Bank (now Capital One) and has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Louisiana State University. She has 30+ years of combined teaching and banking experience.

By |2019-12-11T10:44:23-06:00September 27th, 2019|Bank, Credit Union, Financial Services|0 Comments

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