Understanding the "Unusual": Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Detection in a Canadian Financial Institution.

Under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA), employees in specific industries that deal with cash transactions are responsibilized into reporting all transactions that are deemed suspicious to the appropriate authority. What is deemed suspicious or unusual is to be decided by the individual employee submitting the report. As the legislative guidelines are minimal, how employees come to view a cash transaction as 'suspicious' is unclear. This paper analyzes the implementation of the PCMLTFA in one of Canadas major retail financial institutions, examining how the expert knowledge of financial institutions and on-the-job knowledge learned by retail branch employees combine with legal obligations to influence Unusual Transaction Reporting by tellers in this particular bank. By examining internal documents, interviewing individuals whose type of employment makes them responsible for identifying transactions that may be indicative of money laundering or terrorist financing, and examining those reports generated by employees, this paper attempts to shed light onto an area of policing and organized crime research that, in the Canadian context, has generally gone unnoticed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]