Posted on 03/21/2006 9:48:45 PM PST by Coleus
When checks began bouncing at Holy Name Monastery of the Benedictine Sisters last year, Sister Jean Abbott knew something was fishy.
Her calls to the bank revealed that the St. Leo, Fla., account was frozen for five days because one of the account's signatories -- an 80-year-old nun -- didn't have an identification card on file. The bank blamed the USA Patriot Act for the account freeze.
"The local bank said it was the Patriot Act," said Sister Abbott, who declined to identify the bank. "Someone at the main office of the bank had done, according to the local bank, a spot check on the account, which they do periodically."
The Patriot Act strengthened the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires financial institutions, including banks, creditors and even casinos, to inform the U.S. Treasury Department of transactions they find to be out of the ordinary. But even the Patriot Act cannot close an account -- only a bank can do that.
The number of suspicious transactions that financial institutions are reporting to the government has nearly tripled since the Patriot Act was passed in 2001. A suspicious act could be a business that doesn't normally use cash but suddenly starts making large cash deposits, or a person who normally deposits just a paycheck and suddenly makes a few deposits of tens of thousands of dollars.
Both could be legitimate transactions, but they also could be a sign of money laundering or other illegal activity.
So both cases will draw a red flag from a bank, prompting it to file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR), which is sent to the Treasury Department to determine whether the transaction is fraudulent and to start a paper trail that investigators can use later if necessary.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Must be a terrorist ... fits the profile exactly.
Yeah, but she wasn't trying to board a commercial airliner, she was only trying to cash a check.
Bookmark for "give me one example" bots.
Stuff and nunsense.
Its a start though, isn't it? If she is allowed to cash checks, soon she will be boarding flights and taking over the plane. Benedictine nuns always do that.
And they brew that Franjelica stuff...
The respectable businesses and organizations that laundry the huge cash amounts generated by the drug organizations are clean appearing people that take in cash and run it through private accounts. In return for this service the cash is factored at say 4-10% and these nice people are clean until the strange deposits pop up on the banks radar.
Nuns *are* terrorists - just ask anyone who's been to a Catholic elementary school.
LOL. "But freezing the account didn't affect anybody's rights."
See also http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1542002/posts?page=31#31
Freezing nuns?
You've got a point!
Think "penguins"
Then,
But even the Patriot Act cannot close an account -- only a bank can do that.
I think the bank is full of it.
Must have taken the guideline book from the TSA.
Why is Norm Mineta STILL in office??? The man must have pictures. But seriously, I get the impression that banks are using the Patriot Act as an excuse for their own foul-ups. I've run into this in past year dealing with a very elderly (90yo) relative of mine.
What do the higher mucky-mucks in the Roman Catholic Church have to say about this kind of raving? This is something that has irked and puzzled me about the Catholic organization. Unlike any other Christian body, they have a monopoly on what is in and what is out of their denomination from one single point of control. If the Pope wanted to put the kibosh on this he could do so with a stroke of a pen. But they seldom actually do it and when they do it takes forever.
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