TD Bank must pay $3 billion in fines after pleading guilty to charges in a criminal money laundering case.

“TD Bank has pleaded guilty and been hit with a record $3 billion fine for enabling drug cartel money laundering. Bank employees accepted bribes and overlooked blatant criminal activity by customers from Colombia and other regions,” Rawsalerts wrote.

Per CNN:

The fine includes a $1.3 billion penalty that will be paid to the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a record fine for a bank. TD also intends to pay $1.8 billion to the US Justice Department and plead guilty to resolve the US government’s investigation that the bank violated of the Bank Secrecy Act and allowed money laundering.

The US Department of Justice said in a statement that TD Bank had “long-term, pervasive, and systemic deficiencies” in its procedures of monitoring transactions. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news late Wednesday.

“By making its services convenient for criminals, it became one,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland, at a press conference Thursday.

“Today, TD Bank became the largest bank in U.S. history to plead guilty to Bank Secrecy Act Program failures and the first bank in history to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering,” Garland said.

WATCH:

CNBC reports that TD Bank will accept limits on its growth as part of the settlement, similar to restrictions the Federal Reserve imposed on Wells Fargo in 2018.

“Authorities found that TD Bank allowed multiple criminal networks to move over $670 million through its accounts, facilitating illicit activities such as narcotics trafficking and terrorist financing. The bank pled guilty to conspiracy, the largest U.S. bank to do so in history, and will undergo corporate compliance restructuring, monitoring, and probation,” Mario Nawfal wrote.

CNBC reports:

As part of the deal, TD Bank, whose U.S. unit is the 10th-largest American bank by assets, also will have limits to its growth imposed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The total assets of TD Bank’s two U.S. banking subsidiaries will be barred from exceeding $434 billion under that restriction.

The restrictions are similar to those imposed by the Federal Reserve on Wells Fargo in 2018 over what the Federal Reserve called “widespread consumer abuses” at that bank.

 

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