TD Bank pays $3 billion in historic money laundering settlement

WASHINGTON (AP) — TD Bank will pay about $3 billion in a year historical settlement with U.S. authorities saying Thursday that the financial institution's lax practices enabled significant money laundering over several years.

Canada-based TD Bank pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money, becoming the largest bank in U.S. history to do so, Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

“TD Bank created an environment that allowed financial crime to thrive,” Garland said.

The CEO of the bank, the 10th largest bank in the United States, said it took full responsibility and had cooperated with the investigation.

“This is a difficult chapter in our bank’s history,” TD Bank CEO Bharat Masrani said in a statement. “The board has taken and will continue to take action to address these errors and hold those responsible accountable.”

The Ministry of Justice said the bank Failure to prevent money laundering made it “convenient” for criminals. This allowed money laundering networks to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars through TD Bank accounts over a period of years, prosecutors said.

Bank employees helped a criminal network launder tens of millions of dollars, said Nicole Argentieri, head of the department's criminal division.

In other cases, mountains of cash were dropped at a bank's counters and ATM withdrawals exceeded the daily limit by 40 to 50 times, said Philip Sellinger, U.S. attorney in New Jersey.

The bank's “long-term, pervasive and systemic deficiencies” in its policies over a nine-year period allowed such abuses to flourish, prosecutors said.