Two federal agencies have slapped Zions Bank with multimillion-dollar civil penalties for failing to monitor suspicious wire transfers of billions of dollars related to transactions that may have involved drug trafficking and other crimes.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/51235852-79/zions-bank-activity-suspicious.html.csp

. . . which got Joseph Smith and Signey Rigdon fined by court judgment, as well as hit with other lawsuits:

http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/josephsmithsbank.htm



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2011 12:22AM by steve benson.

Maybe the church is wiring drug money from it's latin connections in Mexico to Salt Lake City to try and bail the church out from it's bad investments and failed businesses.

how can a bank/ church that is headed by a true Profit be so corrupt & un compliant ? MORmONS!

So that's how they launder the Vegas cash.

" The church does not have a majority interest in this bank anymore-- since 1960. Maybe they would have done better if it had and not been slapped with penalties."

That's true WCG, but that's where the church puts it's money according to Monson:

"You can rest assured that this church doesn't put its investments and its confidence in anything that isn't stable, honorable and (having) a record of performance and integrity," he said.

This from the web site of Monson dedicating the new Zions Bank in Provo. "...a record of performance and integrity," Now I am confused.

Am I wrong to take such gleeful delight when putting a morgbot on the defensive?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2011 06:02PM by wine country girl.

All but two of its board members are Mormons.

The mormon church is the largest loan client the bank has... What does that tell you about the loss of Zions bank, and now its multimillion dollar Federal fines for money laundering??

I worked in banks for years. In the past decades there were new rules on deposits of a single $10,000, or a combination that equaled $10,000 or more, especially in one day. Those would trigger special forms to be filled out.

I can't imagine what they were doing with wire transfers of:
"billions of dollars related to transactions that may have involved drug trafficking and other crimes."

Notice the word: "may" -- there is no evidence of a crime or drug trafficking in this report. It probably just involves sloppy paperwork or missing paperwork.

How much paperwork is involved in a wire transfer? I thought the whole idea behind a wire transfer was to limit paperwork transactions. I'm not a banker...just asking.

Anybody who equates Zion's bank with Mormonism in general is missing the point. Both of them are businesses, and because of that, they are vastly separate.

Yes, maybe vastly separate. But then why was Monson in Provo at the dedication of the new Zion's Bank? That has always been strange to me for a church president to dedicate and pray over a private business.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700032512/President-Thomas-S-Monson-dedicates-Zions-Bank-Financial-Center.html

Do you really think that overt, religious acts is what drives the business end of Mormon church? You are assigning too much importance to a moron's prayer.

The report SusieQ mentioned is for CASH deposits of over $10000. Zions didn't mess up on those reports. Cash deposits weren't even part of their problem. And I disagree that this was a simple matter of misfiled or sloppy paperwork.

I've worked in financial institution compliance for over 15 years and specialize in the requirements for the Bank Secrecy Act (the law Zions violated). It appears that Zions did not have proper monitoring procedures in place for detecting suspicious deposits made via remote deposit capture or for detecting suspicious wire transfers. Zions did their own review once the realize they had a problem and agreed the transactions were suspicious.

You have to realize that a bank as large as Zions processes thousands of these transactions every day. I don't believe for a second that the bank knowingly processed money laundering related transactions, but they didn't have systems in place to detect them either. THAT is what they got fined for.

Financial institutions have to proactively look for suspicious transactions and report them immediately. It doesn't matter if transactions were actually related to money laundering. The failure happened when they didn't detect the suspicious transactions and report them.

Compliance Person Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The report SusieQ mentioned is for CASH deposits
> of over $10000. Zions didn't mess up on those
> reports. Cash deposits weren't even part of their
> problem. And I disagree that this was a simple
> matter of misfiled or sloppy paperwork.
>
> I've worked in financial institution compliance
> for over 15 years and specialize in the
> requirements for the Bank Secrecy Act (the law
> Zions violated). It appears that Zions did not
> have proper monitoring procedures in place for
> detecting suspicious deposits made via remote
> deposit capture or for detecting suspicious wire
> transfers. Zions did their own review once the
> realize they had a problem and agreed the
> transactions were suspicious.
>
> You have to realize that a bank as large as Zions
> processes thousands of these transactions every
> day. I don't believe for a second that the bank
> knowingly processed money laundering related
> transactions, but they didn't have systems in
> place to detect them either. THAT is what they
> got fined for.
>
> Financial institutions have to proactively look
> for suspicious transactions and report them
> immediately. It doesn't matter if transactions
> were actually related to money laundering. The
> failure happened when they didn't detect the
> suspicious transactions and report them.


I appreciate your more thorough explanation of what the fine was about.
I don't know how they managed to not have proper policies in place. That part was sloppy.

Why do you guys keep tying this bank to the morg? Other than it's roots, there's virtually no significant relationship anymore. FRM, Wells Fargo and Vanguard are the largest shareholders. It's a non-issue.

Secondly, virtually every major bank in the US has been fined for non-SAR reporting in Mexico. Again, a non-issue. Exchange houses in Mexico are common entities and, until recently, banks haven't been filing the requisite Suspicious Activities Reports. Now they will. Union Bank, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, Citibank, US Bank... all have been fined.

Ron

Monson dedicated the new head quarters last year.

Why do you think that dedications drive how business is done? Do you have any evidence of there being any literal connection?

... and founded by the LDS Church, and run by LDS church members, and into which the LDS Church chooses to deposit its money, would be a little different from all the others which also got fined. I guess not. Do you see the point?

Does anyone have a transcript of the Provo dedicatory prayer? These are about all I can find.

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/59370/A-shining-star-in-business-community.html

http://universe.byu.edu/node/8421

"You can rest assured that this church doesn't put its investments and its confidence in anything that isn't stable, honorable and (having) a record of performance and integrity," he said. Tommy Monson

I found this one from Hinckley on the Salt Lake dedication:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/660192259/Zions-Bank-hails-rededicated-site.html

"We commend those who made the decision to locate the bank and its associated properties in this location," he said. "May it ever be a bright and shining star in the business community of Salt Lake City, and may its influence extend and be felt across the nation."

"This is a cornerstone property of the City Creek project," Huntsman said.

"It's as solid as the Tacoma Narrows Bridge."

:)

Probably countered very well with this rule: No engineering problem there, since the wind anyway is an act of (the Sun of) God ???