TD worker in anti-money laundering department stole client data, U.S. DA says

financialpost.com:

A former Toronto-Dominion Bank employee in its anti-money-laundering department was charged with stealing customer information and distributing it on a Telegram channel, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.

Daria Sewell, 32, worked at the bank from 2023 until May 2024 and had access to personal customer information, prosecutors said. A search of Sewell’s phone found images of 255 checks belonging to customers, along with other personal information of nearly 70 others, including their names, addresses and social security numbers, prosecutors said.

Investigators also determined that after taking the data, Sewell distributed it on Telegram to others who she instructed to open bank accounts to deposit the checks and split the profits with others, prosecutors said.

Sewell’s case is part of a larger investigation, in which five other people have been charged, into a check-fraud scheme that stole nearly US$500,000. Sewell faces a charge of one felony count of unlawful possession of personal information, which carries a potential prison term of as long as four years.

Sewell’s lawyer, Lawrence Fisher, declined to comment. TD Bank wasn’t immediately able to comment.

TD Bank last month said it would pay almost US$3.1 billion in fines and other penalties and face a cap on its U.S. retail banking assets, after pleading guilty to U.S. charges it failed to prevent money laundering by drug cartels and other criminals.

The bank failed for a decade to root out suspicious activities as required under the Bank Secrecy Act, the main anti-money-laundering law, according to the U.S. Justice Department. It became the largest bank in U.S. history to plead guilty to violating that law, and the first bank to plead guilty in the U.S. to