On April 23, 2019, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRB-NY), entered into a consent agreement with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (the Bank) and the Bank's New York Branch (the Branch) for significant deficiencies in the Branch's Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) compliance program. Sumitomo is a foreign bank based in Tokyo and operates a [...]
Commercial State Bank, a $676 million bank in Andrews, Texas, has been issued a Consent Cease and Desist Order by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and the Texas Department of Banking for significant deficiencies in the bank’s risk management and compliance with Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering (BSA/AML) applicable laws, rules, and regulations. The bank was directed [...]
On October 23, 2018, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced $100 million in civil money penalties against Capital One Bank based on deficiencies in the bank’s Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) compliance program. The penalties are linked to Capital One’s failure to adequately respond to a 2015 Cease and Desist Order [...]
On April 3, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published a long-awaited update to Frequently Asked Questions Regarding the Customer Due Diligence Requirements for Financial Institutions. The questions are about Customer Due Diligence Requirements for Financial Institutions, published on May 11, 2016, as amended on September 29, 2017. FinCEN is labeling it the CDD Rule. The [...]
ADI was engaged by a community bank client to help refine its AML transaction monitoring system, with the goal of improving effectiveness and efficiency in generating alerts of suspicious activity. ADI executed a multi-phase analysis plan to develop, test and implement changes to the system that enhanced the performance of the AML monitoring system, satisfying [...]
Aaron Wider, the former owner and CEO of the mortgage bank HTFC Corp. in Garden City, N.Y., was sentenced by a U.S. District judge to 150 months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to commit bank fraud for defrauding financial institutions out of over $30 million in mortgage proceeds. Wider, who was convicted on Jan. 25, 2016, was [...]
On March 1, 2017, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a forfeiture action on First National Bank of Williamson in the amount of $1.36 million related to violations under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The action concerned structuring transactions that occurred between April 2006 and November 2008. The subject customer admitted in court that the [...]
On February 27, 2017, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a Consent Order to Merchants Bank of California, N.A. This Order included an Order for a Civil Money Penalty of $1 million. This Consent Order is the third from the OCC to Merchants Bank since 2010. In 2010, 2014, and now, [...]
Western Union, the largest money service business in the world, agreed to a half-billion dollar settlement over charges they failed to protect customers from fraud and permitted their agents to illegally launder money for customers. Western Union will pay a $586 million fine after pleading guilty to charges of willfully failing to run an effective anti-money laundering [...]
Federal anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, rooted in the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and USA PATRIOT Act, have long required financial institutions to maintain internal control systems to assure compliance, provide for independent testing, designate individuals responsible for compliance and provide training for all appropriate personnel. Moving beyond this federal BSA/AML framework, the New York State [...]
