Treasury Fines Bank of America More Than $1.2 Billion for Willful Money Laundering and Sanctions Violations, a Record for the OCC

The Treasury Department announced on 13 October what it called record enforcement actions against Bank of America, totalling more than $1.21 billion. The bank admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act, the main US anti-money-laundering law.

The penalties come from three Treasury units. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) assessed $1.2 billion. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which supervises national banks, imposed a $750 million civil penalty, its largest ever. The Office of Foreign Assets Control settled 475 apparent sanctions violations for $11.6 million. The three figures add to more than the headline total, which suggests some are credited against each other; Treasury’s release gives the combined figure as more than $1.21 billion.

What the bank did

According to Treasury, Bank of America failed to file timely reports on more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions. More than $1 billion involved national security risks, including Chinese money-laundering networks, fraud and trade-based laundering along the southwest border. The sanctions violations span the Russia, Belarus, Iran, Burma, Somalia, narcotics and terrorism programmes.

CNN reported a screening flaw: transactions weren’t flagged even when both a customer’s name and date of birth matched someone on the sanctions list. The OCC said the problems continued more than a year after a December 2024 cease-and-desist order. The bank must hire a third party to review past transactions and commission independent reviews focused on the border, cartels, Iran and Russia.

“Today’s actions send a clear message that even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

The scale

FinCEN’s penalty is its third-largest, after Binance’s $3.4 billion in 2023 and TD Bank’s $1.3 billion in 2024. There’s no accompanying Justice Department action. The bank said it will take a $1.2 billion charge in its third-quarter results, about 17 cents a share. Dennis Kelleher of Better Markets, a financial reform group, said the fine is small next to the bank’s revenue.

Why it matters

It’s the largest anti-money-laundering penalty on a major US bank in this administration, and it’s framed around priorities the administration emphasises: China, cartels and the border. It comes the same week Treasury is under bipartisan fire for licensing Russian diesel imports, covered in our post on the senators’ objections. The two moves show sanctions enforcement tightening on banks while sanctions on Russian energy loosen at the top.