**[U.S. Treasury Fines Bank of America Nearly $2 Billion for Money Laundering and Sanctions Violations]** BlockBeats News, October 14 – The U.S. Treasury announced yesterday that it has taken multiple enforcement actions against Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the United States, for failures in its anti-money laundering mechanisms and violations of sanctions regulations. According to the specific amounts listed in the announcement, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) imposed a $1.2 billion fine, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) imposed a $750 million civil penalty, and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) reached a $11.6 million settlement with the bank, totaling approximately $1.962 billion. The U.S. Treasury stated that Bank of America failed to promptly report over $5 billion in suspicious transactions to FinCEN, of which more than $1 billion involved national security and key illicit financial risks, including suspected money laundering networks in Asia, fraud, and potential trade-based money laundering activities. The bank also failed to effectively monitor trillions of dollars in transactions due to deficiencies in its transaction monitoring system and delayed filing a large number of suspicious activity reports over an extended period. Additionally, Bank of America was involved in 475 suspected violations of multiple sanctions programs, including processing correspondent banking payments through blocked banks and failing to update sanctions lists in a timely manner. The related transactions involved sanctions programs targeting Russia, Belarus, Iran, Myanmar, Somalia, drug trafficking, and global terrorism. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that large financial institutions must also comply with anti-money laundering and sanctions regulations, as failure to do so poses risks of illicit financial flows to the entire U.S. financial system. [Original Link]