groups and organizations involved in fraud like terrorist financing, money laundering, and other crimes. The purpose of a suspicious activity report is to detect and report known or suspected violations of law or suspicious activity observed by financial institutions subject to the regulations (for example, the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)). In many instances, SARs have been instrumental in enabling law enforcement to initiate or supplement major money laundering or terrorist financing investigations and other criminal cases. Information provided in SAR forms also presents FinCEN with a method of identifying emerging trends and patterns associated with financial crimes. The information about those trends and patterns is vital to law enforcement agencies and provides valuable feedback to financial institutions. Under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), financial institutions are required to assist U.S. government agencies in detecting and preventing money laundering, such as: Keep records of cash purchases of negotiable instruments, File reports of cash transactions exceeding $10,000 (daily aggregate amount), and Report suspicious activity that might signal criminal activity (e.g., money laundering, tax evasion) Each SAR must be filed within 30 days of the date of the initial determination for the necessity of filing the report. An extension of 30 days can be obtained if the identity of the person conducting the suspicious activity is not known. At no time, however, should the filing of an SAR be delayed longer than 60 days. The Bank Secrecy Act specifies that each firm must maintain records of its SARs for a period of five years from the date of filing. Reporters The report can start with any employee of a financial service. The employees are trained to be alert for suspicious activity, such as situations where people are trying to wire money out of the country without identification, or activity by someone with no job who starts depositing large amounts of cash into an account. Employees are trained to ask questions about the transaction and communicate their suspicion up their chain of command where further decisions are made about whether to file a report or not. Many different types of finance-related industries are required to file SARs. These include: depository institutions (for example, banks and credit unions) securities and futures dealers (for example, stock brokers and mutual fund brokers) money services businesses (for example, check cashing services, currency exchange bureaus, and money order providers) casinos and card clubs dealers in precious metals and gems