TD Bank, one of Canada’s top banks, pleaded guilty on Thursday to money-laundering-related charges and has agreed to pay $3 billion in fines. Federal prosecutors brought the case and said that the bank made it easy for criminals to open accounts, transfer funds, and even deposit seven-figure cash at its branches.
This incident has marked the largest-ever penalty imposed by US authorities on a bank for violating anti-money-laundering laws. The US authorities also included a market cap that will prevent TD Bank from growing any bigger than its current size. The federal prosecutors also shared some charging documents that laid out how the bank, and so did its employees, took bribes for more than a decade from criminal customers from Colombia and elsewhere.
In one case, a person from Queens, New York, who had previously pleaded guilty to several crimes, provided bank workers with around $57,000 in gift cards and other accessories in return for permitting more than $470 million laundering.
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TD Bank is Canada’s second-largest bank and has around 1000 branches in the United States of America. Since it was disclosed last year that the bank is the subject of an anti-money laundering lawsuit, its processes have been hindered significantly. Now, the bank’s future, at least in the USA, is uncertain as the federal government has significantly limited the bank’s ability to cater to customers. Also the bank has agreed to retain an independent monitor to oversee the changes TD Bank will make in its anti-money laundering systems.
