REGULATORY ALERT

NATIONAL CREDIT UNION ADMINISTRATION
1775 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA  22314

DATE:          September 2002                              NO:  02-RA-08

TO:               All Federally-Insured Credit Unions

SUBJECT: Suspicious Activity Report (SAR)

REF:            SAR Activity Review – Trends, Tips & Issues, Issue 4, August 2002

The purpose of this regulatory alert is to notify you of the August 2002 issue of The SAR Activity Review – Trends, Tips & Issues.  The SAR Activity Review is published semiannually by FinCEN. 

The publication provides feedback to financial institutions about suspicious activity reported to FinCEN by the institutions.  It contains SAR statistics, patterns and trends of suspicious activity that have been reported, tips and guidance for financial institutions on form preparation and filing, and information about law enforcement cases in which SAR information played an important role in a successful investigation and/or prosecution of criminal financial activity.  Section 2. is of particular interest as it includes a documented analysis of aspects of financial transactions that may indicate terrorist funding activity. 

The SAR Activity Review and FinCEN's press release about the publication also may be found on FinCEN's Web site at  http://www.treas.gov/fincen/sarreview08222002newsrel.pdf.

                                                            Sincerely,

                                                              /S/

                                                            Dennis Dollar
                                                            Chairman