New York –
TD Bank will pay US$3 billion to settle charges that it failed to properly monitor money laundering by drug cartels, regulators announced Thursday.
The fine includes a US$1.3 billion penalty that will be paid to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a record fine for a bank. TD also intends to pay US$1.8 billion to the U.S. Justice Department and plead guilty to resolve the U.S. government’s investigation that the bank violated the Bank Secrecy Act and allowed money laundering.
The U.S. 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.
More than 90 per cent of transactions went unmonitored between January 2018 to April 2024, which “enabled three money laundering networks to collectively transfer more than US$670 …