31 U.S.C. § 5325
Section 5325 · Identification required to purchase certain monetary instruments
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case United States v. All Funds Presently on Deposit or Attempted to Be Deposited in Any Accounts Maintained at American Express Bank (1993)
Most recently applied in United States v. Fisher (December 2017)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) In General.—No financial institution may issue or sell a bank check, cashier's check, traveler's check, or money order to any individual in connection with a transaction or group of such contemporaneous transactions which involves United States coins or currency (or such other monetary instruments as the Secretary may prescribe) in amounts or denominations of $3,000 or more unless—
(1) the individual has a transaction account with such financial institution and the financial institution—
(A) verifies that fact through a signature card or other information maintained by such institution in connection with the account of such individual; and
(B) records the method of verification in accordance with regulations which the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe; or
(2) the individual furnishes the financial institution with such forms of identification as the Secretary of the Treasury may require in regulations which the Secretary shall prescribe and the financial institution verifies and records such information in accordance with regulations which such Secretary shall prescribe.
(b) Report to Secretary Upon Request.—Any information required to be recorded by any financial institution under paragraph (1) or (2) of subsection (a) shall be reported by such institution to the Secretary of the Treasury at the request of such Secretary.
(c) Transaction Account Defined.—For purposes of this section, the term “transaction account” has the meaning given to such term in section 19(b)(1)(C) of the Federal Reserve Act.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
Section 19(b)(1)(C) of the Federal Reserve Act, referred to in subsec. (c), is classified to section 461(b)(1)(C) of Title 12, Banks and Banking.