US Treasury Fines Bank of America More Than $1.21 Billion for Money Laundering and Sanctions Violations

The U.S. Treasury Department announced more than $1.21 billion in penalties against Bank of America on Tuesday for violating anti-money laundering laws and sanctions, making it the third-largest penalty in Treasury history and the largest ever imposed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The bank, the second-largest in the United States, admitted to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to maintain a compliant anti-money laundering program and failing to timely report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, including over $1 billion tied to national security risks such as Chinese money laundering networks and illicit finance activity along the southwest border.

The penalties break down across multiple regulators: Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network assessed a $1.2 billion penalty, the OCC separately imposed a record $750 million civil money penalty that counts toward the overall total, and the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control announced an $11.6 million settlement covering 475 apparent violations of sanctions programs involving Russia, Iran, and other nations. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the failures exposed "the entire U.S. financial system to significant illicit finance risks." Unlike comparable large fines against Binance ($3.4 billion in 2023) and TD Bank ($1.3 billion in 2024), the Bank of America action carries no accompanying Justice Department charges.

The announcement arrived less than a day before Bank of America was scheduled to report third-quarter earnings. The bank disclosed that the non-tax-deductible charge related to the fine will reduce Q3 earnings per share by 17 cents.