TD Bank has been hit with the largest fine ever for a bank for failing to monitor money laundering by drug cartels.
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Conway Gittens: The week came to an end with record closing highs for the Dow and the S&P 500. Stocks held their gains even though consumer sentiment dipped in early October. While inflation worries are easing, consumers are still frustrated by high prices.
Next week earnings season will pick up: Netflix, Procter and Gamble, and Johnson and Johnson will report. And it will be a week for the financials with numbers from American Express, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citigroup.
Sticking with banks: TD Bank has been slapped a record $1.3 billion fine for allowing drug money to be laundered through U.S. operations. That fine, which is to be paid to the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit, is just one of many. The bank also has to pay $1.4 billion to the Department of Justice, $450 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and another $123.5 million to the Federal Reserve.
Much of the money laundering was tied to the illicit distribution of fentanyl.
TD Bank is the largest bank ever to admit that it violated America’s Bank Secrecy Act. It somehow turned a blind eye, which allowed three money laundering networks to use TD Bank to legitimize more than $670 million. In a press conference, Attorney General Merrick said, “By making its services convenient for criminals, it became one.”
In one example of the bank’s gross negligence, employees accepted gift cards worth $57,000 in order to process transactions that would not show up on regulators’ radars.
TD Bank, which is Canada’s second-largest bank and the 10th largest in the U.S., now faces a list of restrictions including federal monitoring, an order to switch its anti-money laundering operations to the U.S., and its growth in the States will now be capped.
TD’s CEO called this “a difficult chapter in our bank’s history.”.
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