<P> The purpose of a suspicious activity report is to report known or suspected violations of law or suspicious activity observed by financial institutions subject to the regulations (for example, the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)). In many instances, SARs have been instrumental in enabling law enforcement to initiate or supplement major money laundering or terrorist financing investigations and other criminal cases . Information provided in SAR forms also presents FinCEN with a method of identifying emerging trends and patterns associated with financial crimes . The information about those trends and patterns is vital to law enforcement agencies and provides valuable feedback to financial institutions . </P> <P> In the United States, FinCEN requires that an SAR be filed by a financial institution when the financial institution suspects insider abuse by an employee; violations of law aggregating over $5,000 where a subject can be identified; violations of law aggregating over $25,000 regardless of a potential subject; transactions aggregating $5,000 or more that involve potential money laundering or violations of the Bank Secrecy Act; computer intrusion; or when a financial institution knows that a customer is operating as an unlicensed money services business . </P> <P> Each SAR must be filed within 30 days of the date of the initial determination for the necessity of filing the report . An extension of 30 days can be obtained if the identity of the person conducting the suspicious activity is not known . At no time, however, should the filing of an SAR be delayed longer than 60 days . The Bank Secrecy Act specifies that each firm must maintain records of its SARs for a period of five years from the date of filing . </P> <P> The report can start with any employee of a financial service . The employees are generally trained to be alert for suspicious activity, such as situations where people are trying to wire money out of the country without identification, or activity by someone with no job who starts depositing large amounts of cash into an account . Employees are trained to communicate their suspicion up their chain of command where further decisions are made about whether to file a report or not . </P>

When does a sar have to be filed in regards to an identity theft