TD Bank will pay more than $3 billion to the US in money laundering case

Canada’s TD Bank has agreed to pay more than $3 billion in fines for failing to adequately monitor money laundering by drug cartels, U.S. officials said Thursday.

TD Bank, the 10th largest bank in the United States, has pleaded guilty to multiple crimes, including violating the Bank Secrecy Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering, Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

“TD Bank created an environment for financial crime to flourish by making its services easy for criminals,” Garland said at a news conference.

“Our anti-money laundering laws dictate that a bank that deliberately fails to protect against criminal schemes is also a criminal,” Garland said. “That’s what TD Bank was.”

Garland said TD Bank failed to monitor $18.3 trillion in customer activity between January 2014 and October 2023, allowing three money laundering networks to transfer more than $670 million through TD Bank accounts.

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Under the settlement, TD Bank will pay $1.8 billion to the Department of Justice and an additional $1.3 billion assessed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

Criminal investigations into individual employees at TD Bank were “active and ongoing,” Garland said.

Source: AFP