[4] The statute has been amended several times, including provisions in Title III of the USA PATRIOT Act, which amended the BSA to require financial institutions to establish anti-money-laundering programs by establishing internal policies, procedures, and controls, designating compliance officers, providing ongoing employee training, and testing their programs through independent audits.

There was an attempt to include another amendment in 2018, called the Illicit Arts and Antiquities Trafficking Prevention Act (IAATP).

As the name implies, its aim was to restrict illegal trafficking of art in the United States which has the highest rates of money laundering in the world.

A single CTR filed for a client's account is usually of no concern to the authorities, while multiple CTRs from varying institutions or a SAR suggest that activity may be suspicious.

This form is required to be kept on record at the financial institution for at least five years, and produced at the request of examiners or audit to verify compliance.

[18][19] In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Bajakajian that the government may not confiscate money from an individual for failure to report it on a Currency and Other Monetary Instruments Report (CMIR), as such punishment would be "grossly disproportional to the gravity of [the] offense" and unconstitutional under the Excessive Fines clause of the Eighth Amendment.

Bajakajian and his family had tried to take $357,144 out of the United States in their luggage, and the government had seized it under the Bank Secrecy Act, which allows forfeiture of "any property, real or personal, involved in such offense".

[22] It allowed Mexican and Colombian drug cartels to launder money through casas de cambio by willfully failing to set up an effective anti-money-laundering program.

[23][24][25] In 2022, Arthur Hayes, entrepreneur and co-founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, pled guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations and was sentenced to six months of home detention, two years of probation, and a $10 million fine.

Financial institutions are subject to penalties for failing to properly file CTRs and SARs, such as heavy fines and regulatory restrictions, including charter revocation.