TD Bank Pleads Guilty to Violating Bank Secrecy Act and Money Laundering; Will Pay $3 Billion
A TD Bank location in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, is surrounded by palm trees and stormy skies. TD Bank will pay more than $3 billion to settle a federal lawsuit that it facilitated money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act violations. Photo credit: MDV Edwards / Shutterstock.com.
From January 2014 through October 2023, TD Bank failed to monitor over $18 trillion in customer activity, which enabled three money laundering networks to transfer funds using the accounts in this bank, according to Reuters. Corrupt TD Bank employees intentionally facilitated these transactions, according to the Justice Department’s statement.
Feds: TD Bank “Chose Profits Over Compliance”
Attorney General Merrick Garland said during the press conference in which the agreement was made public that “TD Bank chose profits over compliance to keep its costs down,” also stating that this bank is the largest one to date to admit the violation of the US Bank Secrecy Act.
As part of the plea agreement, TD Bank has agreed to forfeit $452,432,302 and pay a criminal fine of $1,434,513,478 for a total financial penalty to the Justice Department of $1,886,945,780. TD Bank has also agreed to retain an independent compliance monitor for three years and to remediate and enhance its AML compliance program.
Besides the $1.8 billion fine to the Justice Department, TD Bank agreed to pay $1.3 billion to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and $450 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, bringing the total to well over $3 billion.
Statements by Officials
“For nearly a decade, TD Bank failed to update its anti-money laundering compliance program to address known risks. As bank employees acknowledged in internal communications, these failures made the bank an ‘easy target’ for the ‘bad guys.’ These failures also allowed corrupt bank employees to facilitate a criminal network’s laundering of tens of millions of dollars,” said Principal Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
“TD Bank prioritized growth and convenience over following its legal obligations,” said U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger for the District of New Jersey. “As a result of staggering and pervasive failures in oversight, it willfully failed to monitor trillions of dollars of transactions … including for international drug traffickers.”
TD Bank Takes Full Responsibility
TD Bank published a statement regarding the deal, claiming they have “the financial strength, stability, and operational flexibility to deliver the required U.S. AML (anti-money laundering) remediation program.”
“We have taken full responsibility for the failures of our U.S. AML program and are making the investments, changes, and enhancements required to deliver on our commitments,” bank CEO Bharat Masrani said in the statement.
“This is a difficult chapter in our Bank’s history.”
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