The string of U.S. indictments recently handed down against Venezuelan officials should serve as a warning to the financial services community in South Florida that they need to raise the bar for compliance and anti-money laundering measures as more transactions come under the microscope, lawyers from Holland & Knight say.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and 14 current and former officials with money laundering and other charges March 26 in an alleged narco-terrorism conspiracy to "flood" the United States with cocaine. The indictments came from Manhattan, Miami and Washington, D.C.

Wifredo Ferrer, chair of Holland & Knight's global compliance and investigations team and executive partner of the firm's Miami office, said he expects U.S. agencies to dedicate additional resources to cases against Venezuelan nationals.

"These cases are going to continue coming," Ferrer warned bankers during a Thursday webinar hosted by the Florida International Bankers Association.

He sees the Department of Justice using "every tool in its toolbox" and collaborating more closely with entities such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. That could result in a spike of prosecutions for alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

"It's really important for the banks, the financial institutions, to have done their homework and make sure that they have their compliance programs ready to protect you," said Ferrer, calling preparation the "super-factor" to protect against prosecution.

In addition to protocols, Ferrer said banks need to show they have allotted the necessary resources and personnel to detect suspect transactions. The failure to put enough resources into money-laundering prevention, he noted, is what caused regulators to slap Citigroup Inc.'s Banamex USA operation with a $140 million fine in 2015.

"It's not just having a compliance program on paper, or having it in the system," said Ferrer. "You have to have enough people, enough resources, to make sure you are actually making a difference and being able to weed out and identify the money that is suspect that's going through your system."

Ferrer was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida from 2010 to 2017.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have relocated to Florida over the past two decades as conditions in their country slowly deteriorated. Much of the wealth generated from bribes and corruption in Venezuela also appears to have settled in South Florida.

"We have seized a lot of money," U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan of the Southern District of Florida said in a March press conference.

Daniel Gutiérrez, chair of the anti-money committee for the Florida International Bankers Association and regulatory risk manager with Ocean Bank, concurs.

"Venezuela is right here in our backyard," he said.

While many banks are no longer actively seeking business with high-net-worth Venezuelans, plenty of institutions in South Florida still have significant portfolios with Venezuelans that require extra due diligence.

Gutiérrez suggested Thursday that banks evaluate the long-term business potential with their Venezuelan clients to determine the cost-benefit of maintaining those relationships. He also recommended that banks obtain sworn statements from clients saying that they have no relationship with the Maduro government.

Banking with Venezuelans requires getting to know not just those clients, but also their customers and suppliers. Internet searches that turn up no information, Gutiérrez said, should sound alarms.

Andrés Fernández, a partner in Holland & Knight's Miami office and co-leader of the firm's financial services regulatory team, advised bankers to make sure that transactions do not violate U.S. sanctions against Venezuela.

At the same time, he said, bankers must cover themselves by filing Suspicious Activity Reports with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network when transactions raise other red flags.

"When it comes to Venezuela, the river runs deeper. It's not just about sanctions compliance. It's about this underlying activity, whether it's narco-trafficking, whether it's corruption, whether it's other red flags that we need to be mindful of," said Fernández.

Those red flags could include transactions that initiate from accounts controlled by the Venezuelan government, or transactions that are inconsistent with a government employee's salary. Payments that pass through layers of jurisdictions for no apparent reason should also be eyed with suspicion, said Fernández.