TD Bank pleads guilty to money laundering, fined $1.8 billion

With this plea agreement, TD Bank became the largest bank in U.S. history to plead guilty to the failures of the Bank Secrecy Act program, and the first U.S. bank in history to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit to commit money laundering, Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

“By making its services convenient for criminals, TD Bank has become one,” he said in a statement. “TD Bank chose profits over compliance with the law – a decision that is now costing it billions of dollars in penalties. Let me be clear: our investigation continues and no one involved in TD Bank’s illegal conduct is out of reach.”

The DOJ accused the bank of being aware of the risks its lax oversight posed for exploitation by criminals, but deliberately did nothing to cut costs, making it an “easy target” for “bad guys.” .

Because it chose profit and convenience over following U.S. banking laws, TD Bank failed to monitor trillions of dollars of transactions, including those involving ACH transactions, checks, high-risk countries and peer-to-peer transactions, enabling “hundreds of millions of dollars”. dollars from money laundering networks to pass through the bank”, including for international drug traffickers.

U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger of the District of New Jersey said bank officials were “aware of these risks and failed to take steps to protect against them,” including one case in which a criminal network “poured piles of cash onto the bank counters.” while bribing employees with gift cards worth more than $57,000.

“We take full responsibility for the failures of our U.S. (anti-money laundering) program and are making the investments, changes and improvements necessary to meet our commitments,” said Bharat Masrani, CEO of TD Bank Group , in a press release. “This is a difficult chapter in our bank’s history. These failures took place under my watch as CEO and I apologize to all of our stakeholders.”

The company’s president, Alan MacGibbon, acknowledged that money laundering “poses a serious global threat and our U.S. operations have failed to maintain an adequate AML program to thwart criminal activity.”

The board, he said, “has taken and continues to take steps to address these failures and hold those responsible accountable.” We have appointed new leadership across our U.S. operations, reshuffled our U.S. anti-money laundering team, and prioritized investments to drive the required changes. “