Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on October 14 that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has assessed a $1.2 billion penalty against Bank of America, the nation's second largest bank, over years of anti money laundering failures. According to Treasury, the bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions and did not fix long standing compliance problems, including gaps tied to Chinese money laundering networks and illicit finance along the southwest border. The penalty is the third largest in the Treasury Department's history.
The FinCEN fine was one of three separate actions against the bank announced the same day. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency assessed a $750 million civil penalty over what it called a deficient and ineffective Bank Secrecy Act and anti money laundering compliance program, the largest fine in that regulator's history. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control separately reached an $11.6 million settlement with the bank over apparent sanctions violations tied to Iran, Russia, narcotics trafficking, and terrorism financing. Combined, the three penalties total more than $1.9 billion.