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Compliance

Trade Surveillance

Real-time detection of wash trading, spoofing, layering, and structuring

The monitoring service (pkg/aml.MonitoringService) runs a rules engine for real-time transaction monitoring and market surveillance.

Detection Rules

PatternDescriptionRule Type
Wash TradingSelf-dealing or coordinated trades to inflate volumeVelocity + geographic
SpoofingPlacing orders with intent to cancel before executionVelocity
LayeringMultiple orders at different prices to create false depthVelocity + daily aggregate
StructuringBreaking transactions to avoid CTR threshold ($10,000)Structuring
Front-RunningTrading ahead of known pending ordersVelocity

Rule Types

The engine supports five rule categories:

Rule TypeTrigger
single_amountSingle transaction exceeds threshold
daily_aggregateCumulative daily amount exceeds threshold
velocityTransaction count within time window exceeds limit
geographicTransactions from high-risk jurisdictions
structuringMultiple transactions just below reporting threshold

Alert Lifecycle

Transaction ──► Rules Engine ──► Alert Generated

                            ┌──────────┼──────────┐
                            ▼          ▼          ▼
                          open    investigating  escalated
                            │          │          │
                            ▼          ▼          ▼
                         closed      closed     filed (SAR)

SAR Generation

When an alert is escalated and confirmed, the system generates a Suspicious Activity Report:

  • Filing entity: MSB, broker-dealer, or ATS registration
  • Subject information: From KYC application data
  • Narrative: Auto-generated from alert details and transaction history
  • Supporting documentation: Transaction logs, screening results

Structuring Detection

Structuring detection identifies attempts to break transactions into amounts below the $10,000 Currency Transaction Report threshold:

  • Multiple transactions between $8,000 and $9,999 within 24 hours
  • Transactions from the same originator across multiple accounts
  • Rapid sequential deposits just below threshold

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