TD Bank to pay $3 billion in historic money-laundering settlement
FILE-TD Bank office branch, New York City, New York. (Photo by GHI/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
TD Bank will pay $3 billion in a historic settlement after the financial institution pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering.
U.S. authorities told the Associated Press that TD Bank’s business practices allowed significant money laundering for years.
Citing the Department of Justice, the AP reported that the bank allowed at least three different money laundering networks to move $670 million through TD bank accounts for several years.
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Attorney General Merrick Garland added that executives were warned of significant problems with TD Bank’s anti-money laundering program but failed to correct them as employees joked about how easy it seemed to be for criminals to launder money there, the AP reported.
TD Bank is the 10th largest in the U.S. and CEO Bharat Masrani tells the AP that the company is working to modify its U.S. anti-money laundering program and has appointed new leadership and specialists. Masrani also told the AP that the company takes full responsibility and is cooperating with the investigation.
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The Canada-based financial institution also agreed to restructure its corporate compliance program in its U.S. operations, and three years of monitoring and five years of probation.
Authorities told the AP that the bank became the preferred entity for criminals and money laundering companies.
In one incident, a man moved over $470 million in drug proceeds and other illicit funds through TD Bank branches, bribing workers with more than $57,000 in gift cards.
On several occasions, he deposited over $1 million in cash in a single day and then moved the money out of the bank with checks or wire transfers, Garland told the AP.
In another scheme, five employees worked with criminal organizations to open and maintain accounts that were used to launder $39 million to Colombia, including drug proceeds.
The AP reported that there were multiple red flags in that case, including that the same Venezuelan passports were used to open multiple accounts, but the bank did not identify the problem until one of the employees was arrested.
And in a separate case, a money laundering network had accounts for at least five shell companies that moved over $100 million in illicit funds, but TD Bank did not file a required suspicious activity report until law enforcement alerted it, according to the AP.
Garland told the AP that two dozen individuals have been prosecuted for involvement in money-laundering schemes, including two TD Bank employees.