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Currency transaction report (CTR)

A US report filed for cash transactions above $10,000 in a single business day by one customer, aggregated across the institution; routine, automatic and not an allegation.

Unlike a suspicious-activity-report, a CTR involves no judgement about wrongdoing and the customer may be told it is being filed. Aggregation is the part people miss: several smaller cash transactions in a day are combined.

Deliberately arranging transactions to stay beneath the threshold is structuring, a separate federal crime carrying forfeiture risk, and it will itself generate a SAR.

Securities brokers see these rarely, since cash deposits are uncommon, but the obligation applies across financial institutions including money services businesses and some crypto operators.

Related: suspicious-activity-report, bank-secrecy-act, fincen, anti-money-laundering

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