to think I might be an accessory to a white collar crime?

[CaponeOnTax]

I work in a heavily regulated profession. This has been an insanely busy week so I am only reflecting on this now, even though it all seems obvious in retrospect.

I arrived on a financial transaction mid-way through and didn’t ask about the KYC/anti-money laundering checks on all the parties (which would usually happen right at the start) but early enough.

The key document looks dodgy (USD loan, no interest) and the parties are from high-risk corruption countries. It might be legit, it might not. But I now think it could be money laundering.

I’ve finished my short involvement. I have a broad KYC obligation. So do others on the transaction and they haven’t done anything except progress the transaction.

If I say something now I could be in serious career trouble for not doing anything earlier, when in fact there may be no crime anyway.

AIBU to stay quiet and hope it goes away?

If I has suspicions I would absolutely consult with my team to establish facts, unless I suspected they were facilitating ML, obviously. More facts might alleviate my suspicions, or make my report more complete. There’s no point going off on one, and wasting everyone’s time, with half the facts.

If a junior team member had concerns I’d encourage them to consult senior, more experienced colleagues (on a no names basis if necessary) to determine a good course of action. I absolutely wouldn’t expect a junior colleague to try to handle this alone. We have a whole department whose job it is to support us on this kind of thing and are encouraged to refer up the chain as necessary.

As a manager, if one of my team had suspicions of money laundering, I would expect them to have a chat with the MLRO rather than me. That's why they all have mandatory training each year... so they know what the procedure is.

The MLRO can advise them to put their concerns in writing, or explain to them why it isn't actually a problem. But as it might be a problem, the MLRO is the go to person.

But why would you be seeking to circumvent the confidential reporting process and gatekeep/give others the headsup that the junior smells a rat?

Take a close analogy - school finance and recruitment. The HR junior has realised they didn't doublecheck that there was a ID or recent DBS check on a new employee and just processed the onboarding so he was going to have unsupervised access to children. Might not be somebody with multiple convictions against children. Probably not a concern and he's said he was working overseas, so that's why there's a seven year gap in his CV. Oh well, the Panel said to employ him, must be fine. But then it's been ticking away in their head for a couple of days that they didn't ensure this person had valid identification, references and a clear DBS/Banned List/Checked the SCR for who last claimed him as an employee.

You'd expect them to talk to you - even though you could be a friend of his, the panel could have been influenced by one member (like the Chair of Governors) who knows of an issue around 11 year old girls but believes him when he's previously said it was a stitch up by a mad woman at his last school who had a crush on him. And then you'd suggest the junior goes and talks to the terrifying Deputy Head who happens to be the brother in law of this man, for example, and a bit dodgy himself around 15 year olds and will absolutely dismiss, laugh at or otherwise seek to dissuade the junior from speaking to the DSL before potentially trying to get her fired, make life there intolerable for her so she leaves or destroys her career?

Or would you realise that no, her concerns are more appropriately dealt with by following procedure and speaking directly to the DSL and not alerting anybody else that could potentially lead to criminal acts taking place?

You’re misunderstanding the role of the MLRO and setting up a hysterical strawman. The MLRO isn’t there for whistleblowing or grievances, their role is to ensure that the firm collectively complies with its obligations to report suspicions of financial crimes to the appropriate authorities.

In professional services, the person responsible for ensuring that the team complies with the firm’s internal policies on its engagements is the engagement partner. They need to know if procedures haven’t been followed because they are (sometimes personally and criminally) liable if they haven’t. They need to decide how to deal with issues, in consultation with the appropriate internal risk teams and the firm’s policies. If they ignore reports of non-compliance then it is literally on their own head as partners in the business. Consultation is encouraged as there is often no straightforward right or wrong answer.

AML is slightly different as there’s a personal obligation on each member of the team to report suspicions. Reporting as a team is generally the best course of action so that the MLRO doesn’t receive multiple, slightly different reports with different facts/recollections in each. But if a senior person tells a junior not to report, or the junior doesn’t agree with the wording in the report, then the junior must report separately. And if they were told to not report then I’d expect a whistleblower report on it too. But having been involved in a number of these, I’ve never seen anyone actually try to block a report.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to understand the facts better before making a report, so long as it doesn’t involve tipping off. Consulting more experienced colleagues is also a really good course of action, as talking it through often helps clarify the situation. I’m not sure why you’re seeing an issue with that.

To be clear, I’m not taking about our employees committing crimes, but suspicions we have of our clients, so no tipping off if discussed within the team.

In your example, who’s to say that the DSL isn’t also the brother-in-law and best friend of your hypothetical child abuser. You approach the person you think will help. I’ve previously supported people through reporting suspicions of ML even though I’ve had no involvement in the transaction myself.

And as a partner, I’d want to support my team as it’s a big deal. I wouldn’t make a thing of it if they didn’t approach me, but I’d be disappointed if they didn’t speak to me because they thought me unapproachable. Because I need my juniors to feel able to approach me with problems in order to stay personally compliant.

Nice bit of misogyny, there.

You don't actually understand the role of the DSL. They are there not for whistleblowing or grievances at all, they are there for all instances of things that don't feel quite right, as failure to report or act on information can lead to a school, the DSL and the non reporter being held criminally liable if they don't.

Reporting is always supposed to be made on an individual basis, as the collation of multiple reports enables a pattern or commonalities to be identified, thus making it less likely that a matter will not go unremarked upon or will fail to be evidenced sufficiently for further action to be successful. The fact that a disclosure had been discussed and planned prior to being made would make it less reliable due to the ability of groups to make errors/unintentional pressure upon somebody whose recollection may actually be more accurate and create less reliable recollections, which then can create doubt in the event of a prosecution.

The advantage of using the DSL is that they are specifically trained (as are the MLRO) and reporting is generally done on an online system which cannot be deleted and is then shared with multiple staff/other agencies. As there is a potential criminal penalty attached to failures in safer recruitment/safeguarding and an instant Ofsted failure were it to be only picked up on inspection or LA safeguarding audit and invariably leads to the senior staff concerned all having to resign or be fired, the record of a possible breach on the system makes it imperative for the multiple officers - DSL, Deputy DSLs, HT, DHT, Chair of Governors, Safeguarding Link Governor and at the very least the COO of any MAT - to act immediately in the case of a report to ensure that the correct process is immediately checked and followed. There's too much to lose for too many people, especially when there are also separate channels by which a failure such as this could also be notified externally.

But none of that happens if the line manager convinces the individual staff member that they should just have a chat with the team and they'll decide as a group what to do or that they should go blundering in like Mystery Inc. into a haunted house and investigate things themselves. And it is not unheard of for employees to be involved with ML, as it's to a criminal's advantage to have somebody who 'forgets' to KYC.

Oh, I expect my team to come to me with every other problem under the sun (which they do). I provide them with technical support, soft skills support, even mental health support. But I don't deal with their AML obligations for them.

On the odd occasion where I've had a reasonable suspicion at the same time as another junior colleague (i.e. we've been involved in the same project and they know the same facts that I do), I've made clear that we both need to speak to the MLRO to cover ourselves. I think that signposting is different, because we've both had access to the exact same set of facts.

I wouldn't expect one of my team to discuss an AML concern on a job that I hadn't been involved with. If you think there's a problem, you deal with it on a need to know basis, you don't ask everyone for their opinion.

On a personal level, talk to the MLRO and you're definitely covered. It's the MLRO's problem in figuring out if they then need to make an external report.

@WutheringTights - you've got yourself very confused about correct procedures. You are legally obliged to report as soon as possible, not wait for team chats, so that's the first point when your approach is wrong. You also can't know who might be involved in money laundering, and avoiding tip-off risk is why it is reported without discussion with the wider team. MLRO can do further follow-up as needed.
Have a read: www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/money-laundering-offences.

I spoke to the other colleague about my concerns and it was worthwhile doing that before making a report. At no point did I think my colleague might be part of the crime. As it turns out, the KYC had been done on the Borrowers on another file so that was something.

However, the underlying loan agreement is still questionable. So MLRO report it is.

@NeverDropYourMooncup

You just argued with a partner of a big 4 and turned out to be wrong. Not surprising as you have no experience with this. Not sure why you got involved.

Is there really any need for this post.

Several of us with direct experience in the area also questioned the partner from the big 4. So why the side swipe at one poster?

That's nice, dear.

Run along, now, I'm sure you have other people to attempt to intimidate on the internet.

With the posting style, I do believe you are a partner in big 4. Can't be bothered to see what you argued about, but the tone is a classic. A very unpleasant classic.

That's hilarious. It wasn't even me they were arguing with. They set up a ridiculous strawman and implied misogyny.

Do you have an anonymous whistle blower hotline?

Honestly, just report it. It is your obligation to do so, no matter what stage it is at. I worked in heavily regulated financial consulting for many years.

Oh, dear, you don't quite understand words. I didn't imply misogyny in the slightest. Because the use of the word 'hysterical' when seeking to diminish somebody else's viewpoint by accusing them of being a woman mentally unstable by virtue of having a uterus is implicitly misogynistic. They were misogynistic.

Anyhow, the OP has reported the matter, as she was supposed to do, rather than hoping nobody noticed at a later date or listening a different random on the internet (who appears to 'know' the identity and job title of that poster just how, exactly?...) who would interfere with the procedures put into place to prevent errors, omissions and deliberate fraudulent acts because 'they're a manager'. Which is a good outcome for the OP and the Law.

Any update OP?

Hi OP, what happened when you reported it?