July 4, 2017
On June 5, 2017, the SEC charged brokerage firm Alpine Securities Corporation (Alpine) with securities law violations related to its ineffective anti-money laundering program. According to the SEC’s complaint, Alpine failed to adequately file suspicious activity reports (SARs) for at least 1,950 stock transactions that the firm flagged as suspicious. The SEC found that Alpine’s “records contained information reflecting material red flags of money laundering, securities fraud, or other illicit financial activities relating to its customers and their transactions,” and that Alpine “routinely and systematically failed to identify and report suspicious activity in its SAR filings.”