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Comment by ourmandave | Hacker News Reader

As set forth in the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC protects the confidentiality of whistleblowers and does not disclose any information that could reveal a whistleblower’s identity.

Just have to start scanning for $17M bank deposits.

Wonder what the violation(s) were and how much they fined whatever entity. And if anybody is working on their backhand before they go to white-collar prison.

[Edit] Down voting me is like a backhanded compliment. Just sayin'...

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> Whistleblower awards can range from 10 percent to 30 percent of the money collected when the monetary sanctions exceed $1 million.

Seems like it would be in the range of $56m-$170m, then.

could be this case. the amount looks right https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-262

Or this one https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-114

Could be a small amount every x days?

> Could be a small amount every x days?

I thought "structuring" was illegal.

Hmm, maybe they could be paid in bitcoin?

Never heard about "structuring" before. Gonna have to look it up.

I don't think anti-money laundering laws apply to federal agencies. The SEC isn't hiding this payment from the IRS, in this hypothetical scenario they are just hiding it from the bank employees. In reality, I don't think any bank employee is going to see if a customer got "more than $17M" and assume that they're a whistleblower and... do something with that.

Even if the SEC structured these payments, I highly doubt they'd be under $10k each. It would take way too long.

It’s the government; couldn’t they just hand the whistleblower a $17MM stack of paper treasury bonds? (Or, more realistically, credit $17MM of bonds to the whistleblower’s treasury direct account.)

Structuring is illegal if it's designed to avoid federal reporting thresholds. You're perfectly able to structure your payments as long as each one is above $10,000 US without it triggering any US law. I believe there is also paperwork you can fill out to structure payments below $10,000 apiece (the reason you have to fill out paperwork in that case is to prove the reason for the many smaller payments wasn't to avoid the bank filling out that paperwork on your behalf.)

Meanwhile, lottery winners, people employed at a business and many others receive money at regular intervals.

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