Circular Letter No. 3542 — Discloses a list of operations and situations that may constitute evidence of crimes under Law No. 9,613 of March 3, 1998, reportable to the Financial Activities Control Council (COAF)

The Heads of the Departments of Prevention of Financial Illicit Activities and Handling of Information Requests of the Financial System (Decic), substitute, of Standards of the Financial System (Denor) and of the Executive Management of Foreign Exchange and Foreign Capital Standardization (Gence), in exercise of the authority conferred by Article 22, item I, letter "a", of the Internal Regulations of the Central Bank of Brazil, annexed to Ordinance No. 29,971 of March 4, 2005, and having in mind to clarify the provisions of Articles 13 and 19, item II, of Circular Letter No. 3,461 of July 24, 2009,

R E S O L V E:

Art. 1. The operations or situations described below, considering the parties involved, the amounts, the frequency, the methods of execution, the instruments used, or the lack of economic or legal basis, may constitute evidence of the occurrence of crimes provided for in Law No. 9,613 of March 3, 1998, subject to communication to the Financial Activities Control Council (COAF):

I - situations related to cash operations in national currency:

a) making deposits, withdrawals, requests for provisioning for withdrawal, or any other instrument for transferring cash resources, which present atypicality in relation to the client's economic activity or incompatibility with their economic-financial capacity;

b) cash movements carried out by clients whose activities are characterized by the use of other instruments for transferring resources, such as checks, debit or credit cards;

c) substantial increases in the volume of cash deposits by any natural or legal person, without apparent cause, in cases where such deposits are subsequently transferred, within a short period of time, to a destination unrelated to the client;

d) fragmentation of cash deposits, in order to disguise the total value of the movement;

e) making large-value cash deposits in installments, especially in geographic regions of higher risk, mainly at the same cash machines or self-service terminals nearby, destined for a single account or several accounts in different municipalities or branches;

f) movement of cash resources in municipalities located in border regions, which present signs of atypicality or incompatibility with the client's economic-financial capacity;

g) making cash deposits in accounts of clients who carry out commercial activity related to the trading of luxury or high-value goods, such as works of art, real estate, boats, jewelry, automobiles, or executive aircraft;

h) making cash withdrawals from an account that receives several deposits by electronic transfer from various sources in a short period of time;

i) making cash deposits with wet, smelly, moldy banknotes, or with the appearance of having been stored in an improper location, or which present marks, symbols, or seals unknown, packaged in disorganized and non-uniform bundles; and

j) making deposits or exchanging large quantities of small-denomination banknotes, carried out by a natural or legal person, whose activity or business does not have as a characteristic the receipt of large amounts of cash resources;

II - situations related to cash operations in foreign currency and traveler's checks:

a) movement of resources in foreign currency cash or traveler's checks, which present atypicality in relation to the client's economic activity or incompatibility with their economic-financial capacity;

b) negotiations of foreign currency cash in municipalities located in border regions, which do not present compatibility with the declared nature of the operation;

c) negotiations of foreign currency cash or traveler's checks denominated in foreign currency, which do not present compatibility with the declared nature of the operation;

d) negotiations of foreign currency cash or traveler's checks denominated in foreign currency, carried out by different unrelated natural persons, who provide the same residential address; and

e) receipt of foreign currency cash by natural persons residing abroad, temporarily in the country, resulting from payment orders in their favor or the use of an international-use card, without clear evidence of purpose;

III - situations related to client registration data:

a) resistance to providing information necessary to start the relationship or for updating registration, offering false information, or providing information that is difficult or costly to verify;

b) opening, movement of accounts, or carrying out operations by a holder of a power of attorney or any other type of mandate;

c) presentation of irregularities related to the identification and registration procedures of operations required by current regulation, followed or not by the termination of the commercial relationship;

d) registration of several accounts on the same date, or in a short period, with deposits of identical or approximate values, or with other common elements, such as source of funds, owners, attorneys, partners, address, phone number, etc;

e) carrying out operations in which it is not possible to identify the ultimate beneficiary, observing the procedures defined in current regulation;

f) providing the same commercial address by different legal entities or organizations, without reasonable justification for such occurrence;

g) representation of different legal entities or organizations by the same attorneys or legal representatives, without reasonable justification for such occurrence;

h) providing the same residential or commercial address by natural persons, without demonstrating the existence of a family or commercial relationship; and

i) incompatibility of the declared economic activity or revenue with the pattern presented by clients with the same profile;

IV - situations related to account movement:

a) movement of resources incompatible with the client's assets, economic activity, or professional occupation and financial capacity;

b) transfers of rounded values in the thousand unit or slightly below the limit for reporting operations;

c) movement of high-value resources, habitually, for the benefit of third parties;

d) maintenance of numerous accounts intended to receive deposits in the name of the same client, whose values, when summed, result in a significant amount;

e) movement of a significant amount through an account until then little used or an account that receives an unusual deposit;

f) sudden absence of financial movement in an account that previously showed high movement;

g) atypical use of rented safes in relation to the client's profile;

h) waiver of the option to use privileges such as receiving credit, remunerated interest on large balances, or other special banking services that, under normal circumstances, would be valuable to any client;

i) sudden and unjustified change in the way resources are moved or in the types of transactions used;

j) request for non-observance or acting in a way to induce institution employees to not follow regulatory or formal procedures for carrying out an operation;

k) receipt of resources with immediate purchase of instruments for making payments or transfers to third parties, without justification;

l) carrying out operations that, by their habitual nature, value, and form, constitute a device to evade the identification of the origin, destination, responsible parties, or ultimate beneficiaries;

m) existence of accounts that present credits and debits using instruments for transferring resources not characteristic of the occupation or business sector developed by the client;

n) receipt of deposits from various sources, without economic-financial justification, especially from regions distant from the place of operation of the legal entity or distant from the domicile of the natural person;

o) habitual payments to suppliers or beneficiaries that do not have a link with the activity or business sector of the legal entity;

p) payments or transfers by a legal entity to a distant supplier from its place of operation, without economic-financial justification;

q) making deposits of endorsed checks totaling significant values;

r) existence of demand deposit accounts of non-profit organizations whose balances or financial movements do not present economic or legal justification or in which there seems to be no link between the declared activity of the organization and the other parties involved in the transactions;

s) habitual movement of financial resources from or to politically exposed persons or persons with close relationships, not justified by economic events;

t) existence of accounts in the name of minors or incapacitated persons, whose representatives carry out a large number of atypical operations; and

u) significant and unusual transactions through deposit accounts of non-resident investors constituted in the form of trust;

V - situations related to internal investment operations:

a) operations or set of operations of purchase or sale of securities and financial assets at prices incompatible with those practiced in the market or when carried out by a person whose declared activity and profile do not match the type of negotiation carried out;

b) carrying out atypical operations that result in high gains for intermediary agents, disproportionate to the nature of the services effectively provided;

c) significant investments in low-yield and low-liquidity products;

d) significant investments not proportional to the client's economic-financial capacity, or whose origin is not clearly known; and

e) redemption of investments in the very short term, regardless of the result obtained;

VI - situations related to payment cards:

a) use, loading, or reloading of a card in a value not compatible with the economic-financial capacity, activity, or profile of the user;

b) making multiple withdrawals with a card at electronic terminals in different locations distant from the place of contracting or reloading;

c) use of the card in a manner incompatible with the client's profile, including atypical operations in other countries;

d) use of various sources of resources for loading and reloading cards; and

e) carrying out card loading and reloading operations, immediately followed by withdrawals at ATMs.

VII - situations related to credit operations in the country:

a) carrying out credit operations in the country settled with resources apparently incompatible with the client's economic-financial situation;

b) request for credit concession in the country incompatible with the client's economic activity or financial capacity;

c) carrying out a credit operation in the country followed by remittance of resources abroad, without economic or legal basis, and without relationship with the credit operation;

d) carrying out credit operations in the country, simultaneous or consecutive, settled in advance or in a very short period;

e) settlement of credit operations in the country by third parties, without apparent justification;

f) granting of guarantees for credit operations in the country by third parties not related to the borrower;

g) carrying out a credit operation in the country with offering of guarantee abroad by a client without a tradition of carrying out operations abroad; and

h) acquisition of goods or services incompatible with the object of the legal entity, especially when the resources originate from credit in the country;

VIII - situations related to the movement of resources originating from contracts with the public sector:

a) atypical movements of resources by public agents, as defined in Article 2 of Law No. 8,429 of June 2, 1992;

b) atypical movements of resources by natural or legal persons related to sponsorship, advertising, marketing, consultancies, advisory services, and training;

c) atypical movements of resources by non-profit organizations; and

d) atypical movements of resources by natural or legal persons related to bidding;

IX - situations related to consortiums:

a) existence of consortium members holding a high number of quotas, incompatible with their economic-financial capacity or with the object of the legal entity;

b) significant increase in the number of quotas belonging to the same consortium member;

c) offering of bids incompatible with the economic-financial capacity of the consortium member;

d) offering of bids very close to the value of the good;

e) advance payment of a significant quantity of future installments, not consistent with the economic-financial capacity of the consortium member;

f) acquisition of previously awarded quotas, followed by settlement of future installments;

g) use of forged documents in adherence or attempt of adherence to a consortium group;

X - situations related to persons suspected of involvement in terrorist acts:

a) financial movements involving persons related to terrorist activities listed by the United Nations Security Council;

b) carrying out operations or providing services, regardless of the value, to persons who have committed or attempted to commit terrorist acts, or participated in or facilitated their commission;

c) existence of resources belonging to or controlled, directly or indirectly, by persons who have committed or attempted to commit terrorist acts, or participated in or facilitated their commission; and

d) movements with signs of terrorist financing;

XI - situations related to international activities:

a) carrying out or proposing an operation with natural or legal persons, including societies and financial institutions, located in countries that do not apply or apply insufficiently the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), or that have headquarters in countries or dependencies with favored taxation or privileged fiscal regimes or in places where the habitual practice of the crimes provided for in Law No. 9,613 of March 3, 1998, is observed, not clearly characterized in their legality and economic basis;

b) use of complex operations with higher costs that aim to hinder the tracking of resources or the identification of the nature of the operation;

c) carrying out import payments and export receipts, in advance or not, by a company without tradition or whose economic-financial evaluation is incompatible with the amount negotiated;

d) carrying out payments to third parties not related to import or export operations;

e) carrying out unilateral transfers that, by their habitual nature, value, or form, are not justified or present atypicality;

f) carrying out international transfers in which the origin of the funds involved is not justified or appear incompatible with the economic-financial capacity or profile of the client;

g) carrying out transfer of values as availability abroad, incompatible with the client's economic-financial capacity or without economic or legal basis;

h) carrying out exports or imports apparently fictitious or with signs of over-invoicing or under-invoicing;

i) existence of information in the letter of credit with discrepancies in relation to other documents of the international trade operation;

j) carrying out payments abroad after credits in reais made in the deposit accounts of the holders of foreign exchange operations by persons who do not demonstrate the existence of a commercial or economic link;

k) movements resulting from a resource repatriation program that present inconsistencies related to the identification of the holder or ultimate beneficiary, as well as absence of reliable information about the origin and economic or legal basis; and

l) carrying out frequent advance or cash payments for imports in which it is not possible to obtain information about the customs clearance of the goods;

XII - situations related to credit operations contracted abroad:

a) contracting of credit operations abroad with clauses that establish conditions incompatible with those practiced in the market, such as interest rates divergent from practice or very long terms;

b) contracting, abroad, of several consecutive credit operations, without the institution having knowledge of the settlement of the previous ones;

c) contracting, abroad, of credit operations that are not settled through operations in the same institution;

d) contracting, abroad, of credit operations, settled without apparent explanation for the origin of the resources; and

e) contracting of loans or financing abroad, offering guarantees in values or forms incompatible with the activity or economic-financial capacity of the client or in values much higher than the value of the contracted operations or whose origin is not clearly known;

XIII - situations related to external investment operations:

a) receipt of direct external investment, whose resources return immediately as availability abroad;

b) receipt of direct external investment, with almost immediate remittance of resources abroad as profits and dividends;

c) carrying out remittance of profits and dividends abroad in values incompatible with the invested value;

d) carrying out remittances abroad as investment in amounts incompatible with the client's financial capacity;

e) carrying out remittance of resources from the same investor located abroad to several companies in the country;

f) carrying out remittance of resources from several investors located abroad to the same company in the country; and

g) receipt of capital contribution disproportionate to the size or business nature of the client, or in values incompatible with the economic-financial capacity of the partners; and

XIV - situations related to employees of financial institutions and their representatives:

a) unusual change in the lifestyle and behavior patterns of the employee or representative, without apparent cause;

b) unusual modification of the operational result of the legal entity of the representative or the correspondent in the country, without apparent cause;

c) carrying out any business in a manner different from the formal procedure of the institution by an employee, representative, or correspondent in the country; and

d) providing assistance or information, remunerated or not, to a client to the detriment of the institution's anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing prevention program, or assistance to structure or fragment operations, evade regulatory or operational limits.

Art. 2. The situations described in this Circular Letter, when applicable, may indicate parameters for the structuring of internal control systems, including computerized ones, for the prevention of money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism implemented by financial institutions and other institutions authorized to operate by the Central Bank of Brazil.

Art. 3. The communication of the situations related in this Circular Letter, as well as others that, although not mentioned, may constitute evidence of the occurrence of the practices referred to in Article 13 of Circular Letter No. 3,461 of July 24, 2009, must be carried out through the Financial Activities Control System (Siscoaf).

Art. 4. This Circular Letter enters into force on May 14, 2012, when Circular Letter No. 2,826 of December 4, 1998, is revoked.

Nelson Rodrigues de Oliveira Sergio Odilon dos Anjos Head of the Department of Prevention Head of the Department of Standards of Financial Illicit Activities and Handling of the Financial System of Information Requests of the Financial System, substitute

Geraldo Magela Siqueira
Head of the Executive Management of Standardization of Foreign Exchange and Foreign Capital