US Treasury fines Bank of America $1.21B over laundering, sanctions

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed more than $1.21 billion in penalties on Bank of America for violations of anti-money laundering and sanctions laws, marking the third-largest penalty in the department's history and the largest ever issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Record penalties for compliance failures

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) assessed a $1.2 billion penalty against the country's second-largest bank for failing to mitigate and report priority national security risks, while the OCC imposed a $750 million civil money penalty for deficiencies in its compliance program. The Treasury said Bank of America failed to timely report over $5 billion in suspicious transactions, with more than $1 billion implicating national security-related risks including Chinese money laundering networks, fraud schemes, and trade-based money laundering linked to the southwest border.

Sanctions breaches and official response

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) separately reached an $11.6 million settlement with the bank over 475 apparent violations of sanctions programs related to Iran, Russia, narcotics trafficking and global terrorism. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said financial institutions operate on the front lines of protecting economic and national security, noting that “when a bank of this size fails to meet its anti-money laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond its own walls, exposing the entire U.S. financial system to significant illicit finance risks.”