@cspanofficial: TD Bank pleaded guilty Thursday to multiple criminal charges and agreed to pay $3 billion in fines and other penalties for failing to monitor money laundering by drug traffickers and other criminals. “TD Bank created an environment that allowed financial crime to flourish. By making its services convenient for criminals, it became one,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference. The bank becomes the largest in U.S. history to plead guilty to Bank Secrecy Act program failures and the first U.S bank to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. “Our anti-money laundering laws dictate that a bank that willfully fails to protect against criminal schemes is also a criminal,” the attorney general said. “That is what TD Bank was, because it failed to maintain an adequate anti-money laundering program.” As part of the plea agreement, TD Bank must restructure its corporate compliance program at its U.S.-based bank, which is the 10th largest in the country, and will have limits to its growth imposed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The Justice Department has also prosecuted two dozen individuals for their involvement in money laundering schemes that moved more than $670 million in illicit funds through TD Bank accounts. Prosecutors have so far charged two TD Bank employees for their involvement in the schemes, and investigations are “active and ongoing.” “As is the case in all corporate criminal matters, no one involved in TD Bank’s illegal conduct will be off limits. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads,” Attorney General Garland said. The Bank Secrecy Act requires financial institutions to establish and maintain compliance programs that guard against money laundering. “But TD Bank chose profits over compliance, in order to keep its costs down. That decision is now costing the bank billions of dollars in criminal and civil penalties,” the attorney general said. #attorneygeneral #merrickgarland #doj #tdbank #moneylaundering #cspan

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Thursday 10 October 2024 21:11:46 GMT