According to the Wall Street Journal, the US Justice Department’s criminal head said recently that banks may have to do more than send suspicious activity reports off to FinCEN when they come across risky customers.

She is reported to have said: “The vast majority of financial institutions file suspicious activity reports when they suspect that an account is connected to nefarious activity...but, in appropriate cases, we encourage those institutions to consider whether to take more action: specifically, to alert law enforcement authorities about the problem.” The announcement - perhaps unprecedented - that sending off a SAR is not the same thing as alerting the authorities about someone seems to be an admission of what everyone has known since the inception of the Bank Secrecy Act 1970: that not all SARs are read, despite the blandishments of government employees at conferences.

Some elements of the press, however, are taking this to be the harbinger of a new governmental policy. No policy document has yet been forthcoming.