TD pleads guilty to money laundering charges in 'difficult chapter in our bank's history'

financialpost.com:

Toronto-Dominion Bank is facing a cap on its asset expansion in the United States and being fined about US$3.1 billion for failing to monitor money laundering activities through its branches, say the U.S. Department of Justice and other U.S. regulators.

The justice department has also charged two TD bank employees for their involvement in one of the three money laundering schemes that moved more than US$670 million in illicit funds through TD bank accounts.

“By making its services convenient for criminals, it became one,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference on Thursday. “Our criminal investigations into individual employees at every level of TD Bank are active and ongoing … no one involved in TD Bank’s illegal conduct will be off limits.”

He said TD is the largest bank in U.S. history to plead guilty to the Bank Secrecy Act, which is used to tackle money laundering. It’s also the first bank to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The Bank Secrecy Act includes a penalty provision that allows regulators to fine a financial institution up to US$500,000 for each day it lacks a functional anti-money laundering program. The Department of Justice had never used the maximum daily penalty until Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at the press conference.

As a result, TD was fined US$1.8 billion, which is the largest penalty ever imposed under the act. The total fine rises to about US$3.09 billion with fines from t<span class=«TextRun SCXW18487281 BCX0» data-contrast=«none» lang=«EN-US» xml:lang=«EN-US»>he U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Office of the Comptroller of the