FINRA Special Investigations Unit Identifies Priorities
In two blog posts, FINRA’s Special Investigations Unit ("SIU") reported that it is prioritizing review of Russia-related sanctions and evasion tactics, new account fraud, reporting of cyber-events and cyber-enabled fraud, market manipulation and trading-related frauds and Ponzi schemes. The SIU highlighted these and other AML threats identified in its 2023 Examination and Risk Monitoring Report (see previous coverage).
SIU warned member firms to remain vigilant regarding manipulative trading in small capitalization initial public offerings due to an increase in pump-and-dump schemes (see previous coverage); and fraudulent customer account transfer requests through the National Securities Clearing Corporation's Automated Customer Account Transfer Service ("ACATS") (see previous coverage).
SIU recommended that member firms make use of available tools and resources to help manage cybersecurity risk and reminded firms of their obligation to file Suspicious Activity Reports on cyber-enabled financial crime. SIU said it remains committed to working with other FINRA units and members firms to detect impostor websites used by bad actors to gather personal information and commit financial fraud (see previous coverage).
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