TD Bank fined $1.8 billion for not reporting suspicious cryptocurrency activities

The tenth largest bank in the United States, TD Bank, has been fined over $1.8 billion for violating the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering regulations, making it the largest bank in U.S. history to admit to a failed Bank Secrecy Act program.

FinCEN Details Violations by TD Bank

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the regulatory agency responsible for enforcing and overseeing compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), has issued a 99-page report detailing the violations by TD Bank since 2012.

• TD Bank failed to implement and maintain an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) program in compliance with the requirements of the BSA, leading to a failure to timely detect and report a significant amount of illicit activities.
• The bank had insufficient investment in AML compliance, resulting in severe shortages of personnel and technological resources to effectively address suspicious activities.
• The bank's transaction monitoring system had significant deficiencies, failing to cover all transaction types, resulting in a large number of suspicious transactions going unmonitored.
• Inadequate monitoring of high-risk operations, particularly in cash transactions and internal staff involvement in suspicious activities.

The report mentions a customer referred to as "Customer Group C," with FinCEN alleging that TD Bank processed over $1 billion in transactions for them within nine months, with 90% of the funds coming from a UK-based cryptocurrency exchange and over 60% of the funds being sent to Colombia, also involving financial institutions providing cryptocurrency-related services, in high-risk industries and regions.

TD Bank Agrees to Pay $1.8 Billion Fine

According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), TD Bank has agreed to pay over $1.8 billion in fines to resolve the DOJ's investigation into violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and money laundering.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland stated:

TD Bank is the largest bank in the United States to admit to failures in its BSA program and the first U.S. bank to admit to conspiring to launder money, choosing profits over compliance with the law, a decision that has cost the bank billions of dollars.

Notably, FinCEN imposed a record $1.3 billion fine on TD Bank and implemented a four-year independent monitor to oversee the remedial measures required for TD Bank.