The US Treasury Department announced fines exceeding 1.2 billion dollars against Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the United States, for violations of anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws after it failed to properly report suspicious transactions worth more than 5 billion dollars.
Treasury identifies money-laundering networks and illicit activities
The department said some of the transactions raised national security concerns, including transactions pointing to Chinese money-laundering networks, as well as illicit financing activities around the southwestern US border. In a separate action, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control reached an 11.6 million dollar settlement with the bank.
The settlement relates to possible violations of several sanctions programmes, including those concerning Iran, Russia, narcotics and global “terrorism”. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement that the actions sent a clear message that major financial institutions were not above the law.
Bessent added that a bank of this size failing to meet its anti-money-laundering and sanctions-compliance obligations had consequences beyond the institution itself, exposing the entire US financial system to serious risks linked to illicit financing. A Bank of America spokesman, for his part, acknowledged the importance of complying with financial-crime rules and said the bank “takes responsibility for correcting the matter”. He said the bank was working with the relevant authorities to reach settlements over these sanctions.
