TD Bank, one of Canada’s largest banks has been slapped with a record US$3 billion over drug cartel money laundering. This gigantic penalty will be paid out to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the US Department of Justice.

According to a report that appeared in Canada’s CTV News, TD Bank will pay the fine to settle the charges it has been facing after it failed to properly monitor money laundering by drug cartels.

“The fine includes a US$1.3 billion penalty that will be paid to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and US$1.8 billion payable to the U.S. Justice Department,” CTV News reported. At the same time, TD Bank shall plead guilty to resolve the U.S. government’s investigation that it violated the Bank Secrecy Act and allowed money laundering.

Legal filings quoted by CTV News showed that more than 90 per cent of transactions went unmonitored between January 2018 to April 2024. This then enabled three money laundering networks to collectively transfer more than US$670 million through TD Bank accounts.

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“In one instance, TD Bank employees collected more than US$57,000 worth of gift cards to process more than US$470 million in cash deposits from a money laundering network to ensure employees would continue to process their transactions and not declare them in required reports,” the CTV quoted the Department of Justice.

The current chief executive officer at the bank, Bharat Masrani, under whose watch the crimes were committed acknowledged the mess the bank had found itself in.

“This is a difficult chapter in our bank’s history… These failures took place on my watch as CEO and I apologize to all our stakeholders,” said Masrani.

“We have taken full responsibility for the failures of our U.S. [anti-money laundering] program and are making the investments, changes and enhancements required to deliver on our commitments.” TD Bank is the sixth largest bank in North America by assets and serves over 27.5 million customers around the world.