In the US, Warren calls for investigation into Bank of America — CNBC
In the United States, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren called on the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into Bank of America and its executives over violations of anti-money laundering requirements. CNBC reports, citing the senator's letter.
Warren, the senior Democratic member of the Senate Banking Committee, addressed Attorney General Todd Blanche. She called the more than $1.2 billion in fines imposed on the bank on October 13 insufficient punishment and asked for a determination of whether there are grounds for criminal charges.
The senator gave the department until November 12 to say whether it had already investigated these violations and whether it plans to do so. Bank of America and the US Department of Justice did not immediately comment on reporters' inquiries.
Violations of financial monitoring requirements
Earlier, regulators at the US Department of the Treasury accused the country's second-largest bank of serious, long-running control deficiencies. Under an agreement with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Bank of America admitted to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act.
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According to regulators, the bank failed to maintain an adequate anti-money laundering program and reported suspicious activity late. This concerns more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions that were not reported in time. More than $1 billion of this amount concerned national security risks and other priority risks, including activity that could indicate China-linked money laundering networks and transactions related to the US southwest border.
Fines without criminal charges
Regulators said that Bank of America at times placed revenue above compliance and relied heavily on law enforcement requests and reports from other financial institutions rather than on its own systems for detecting suspicious transactions.
The total amount of fines exceeded $1.2 billion, including a record $750 million fine imposed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. These measures did not include criminal charges against either the bank or its executives. After the fines were announced, Bank of America said it had invested billions of dollars in compliance and had already made significant progress in addressing the problems.
The bank was also subject to a cease-and-desist order issued in 2024 over deficiencies in its anti-money laundering systems. This month, regulators said that the bank had not made sufficient progress in correcting some of these problems.
