Christiana Ugochukwu

DUTIES

• Investigate and report on complex financial crimes, policy violations, and suspicious activities.
• Perform investigative research, root cause assessment, and consulting regarding highly complex financial crime transactions, policy violations, and suspicious situations with moderate to high risk.
• Research root causes of incidents and consult on financial crime cases with moderate to high risks.
• Investigate transactions, scenarios, customer behavior, and financial patterns by BSA/AML, and FRAUD Department procedures for potential SAR filings.
• Conduct thorough research and prepare documentation for investigations around application fraud, check forgery, loan fraud, elder abuse, and other financial crimes.
• Provide an immediate response and support in possible violations, including OFAC, CIP, the USA Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act, and Money Laundering.
• Familiarity with Regulation E, which governs credit card practices, and knowledge of Regulation Z, which protects consumers when they use electronic fund transfers while resolving moderate to complex fraud issues, and acts as an escalation point for more complex cases.
• Perform a detailed examination to detect transactional and relationship patterns, trends, anomalies, and schemes across multiple businesses or products.
• Participates in BSA/AML/CIP/OFAC quality control reviews, audits, and exams by compiling requested items and producing various reports
• Maintains strict confidentiality over customer information and serves as back up for Enhanced Due Diligence Reviews

SAR filing.

• Investigate each case thoroughly, work with internal and external clients, and document findings accurately for record-keeping and SAR filing purposes.
• Drafts SAR narratives in accordance with Fraud/AML Department procedures
• Experience filing SARs on the FINCEN website.
• Gathers requested documentation for law enforcement inquiries.

• Monitored financial transactions for unusual or suspicious patterns indicative of money laundering activities
• Conduct reviews of alerts/cases and/or files regarding the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), Anti-Money Laundering, Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC), Know Your Customer (KYC), including Identification Verification (ID&V), Customer Due Diligence (CDD), Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD), Ongoing Monitoring and other financial crime investigations to mitigate risks associated with financial crimes
• Investigate potentially suspicious activity that may arise from account surveillance, branch escalations, negative news matches, regulatory investigations, and matters otherwise escalated to the AML Group by other AML teams, the Business, Compliance, Legal, Risk, or other Firm divisions where account activity or client-related negative news is at issue
• Conduct appropriate due diligence related to the potential suspicious activity through the review of client background information, review of securities transactions, and fund movements as necessary
• Conduct financial analysis to identify potential fraudulent activities
• Review and analyze financial transactions and records for irregularities or suspicious patterns
• Prepare reports on findings and recommendations for management

• Utilized templates for common responses and documentation, speeding up the process and reducing the risk of errors
• Ensured prompt and clear communication with customers to gather necessary information and provide updates on the chargeback dispute status
• Liaised with Bank, external and internal customer (parties) to maintain effective communication with acquiring and issuing banks to resolve disputes efficiently
• Tracked key performance indicators (KPIs) related to chargeback handling, such as resolution timeframes and success rates
• Performed post-mortem analysis on resolved chargebacks to identify lessons learned and implement corrective actions
• Conduct financial analysis through open search screening for negative news, to identify potential fraudulent activities
• Review and analyze financial transactions and records for irregularities or suspicious patterns
• Prepare reports on findings and recommendations for management
• Investigate and research cases of identified fraud, fraud loss, or suspicious events to identify fraud rings and patterns, assist victims in resolving fraud events, and deny fraud claims identified as false through investigation
• Provide timely and accurate responses to ensure customers receive the best service when verification is requested
• Communicate risk decisions effectively in both verbal and written communication to customers, internal business partners, agent offices and management
• Maintain accurate records of investigations, findings, and actions taken, adhering to confidentiality and data protection standards
• Wrote SAR narrative which is used to file a SAR
• Maintain and manage a caseload while meeting competing SLA requirements and up-to-date knowledge of relevant statutes, case law, industry trends, and emerging technologies