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OFAC Fines Australian Bank Nearly $6 Million for Violating Cuban, Sudanese Sanctions
By Brian Monroe
printThe New York branch of an Australian bank has paid nearly $6 million for erasing transactional records that it processed more than $100 million tied to two blacklisted countries. The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) penalized Australia and New Zealand Bank Group (ANZ), Ltd. $5.75 million for "actively manipulating" – or "stripping" – data from wire transfers processed through the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (Swift). Between 2004 and 2006, ANZ deleted information tied to 31 transfers involving $106 million in U.S. foreign correspondent wire transactions related to Sudanese and Cuban entities, according to...
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