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OFAC Fines Bank of America $16 Million for Transactions Linked to Drug Traffickers

By Colby Adams

Bank of America, N.A. will pay a $16.5 million penalty for failing to freeze assets and reject transactions linked to sanctioned global drug traffickers, the U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday. From September 2005 to October 2009, the bank processed $91,000 in 208 transactions for 10 individuals on the U.S. list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said. Of those transactions, 79 were deemed egregious by the sanctions enforcer. The settlement, which attributed the violations to a long-term and previously identified sanctions screening deficiency that Bank of America said it had already fixed, also...

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