U.S. Treasury fines Bank of America nearly $2 billion for money laundering and sanctions violations On October 13, the U.S. Treasury announced multiple enforcement actions against Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the U.S., for failures in anti-money laundering mechanisms and sanctions violations. FinCEN fined $1.2 billion, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined $750 million—marking the largest fine in its history—and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) settled for $11.6 million, totaling approximately $1.962 billion. FinCEN stated that the bank admitted to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to report over $5 billion in suspicious transactions in a timely manner. More than $1 billion of these transactions posed national security risks, including links to Chinese money laundering networks, fraud, and trade-based money laundering tied to the U.S.-Mexico border. Regulators pointed out that the bank prioritized revenue over compliance investments, overly relied on external leads, and failed to rectify issues even after a December 2024 prohibition order. The OFAC settlement involved 475 alleged violations related to sanctions programs involving Russia, Iran, and others. The bank is required to hire a third party to retrospectively review unreported transactions and undergo independent assessments.