Archive

May 12, 2021

Registered broker-dealer GWFS Equities Inc. will pay a penalty of $1.5 million to settle allegations that it failed to respond appropriately when it detected external bad actors gaining, or attempting to gain, access to the retirement accounts of participants in the employer-sponsored retirement plans it serviced, including through the use of improperly obtained electronic login information, user names, email addresses, and passwords. There was no allegation that this personal identifying information was disclosed in a breach of GWFS systems. However, the bad actors used this information to request distributions from plan participant accounts. While GWFS detected and blocked many of these attempts, the SEC charged that GWFS failed to file suspicious activity reports, or filed incomplete SARs, with respect to the account takeovers. SEC

May 4, 2021

Alberto Orian Gonzalez-Delgado was sentenced to 210 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud.  He is the last of eight individuals to be sentenced for a money laundering scheme in Florida and Michigan involving the use of nominee owners to fraudulently purchase home health agencies and then bill Medicare for services that were never provided to Medicare beneficiaries.  The defendants caused the payment of approximately $53 million in fraudulent claims.  DOJ

April 30, 2020

The owner of dog training school Universal K-9, Inc., Bradley Lane Croft, has been sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for defrauding the Veteran Administration’s GI Bill program of more than $1.5 million in connection with 185 fraudulent claims relating to 132 veterans.  Croft had been found guilty of providing false information on instructor names, certifications, and training to the Texas Veterans Commission, laundering money, and submitting fraudulent income tax returns for 2016 and 2017.  USAO WDTX

March 25, 2021

The eighth highest grossing casino in California, Artichoke Joe’s Casino, has agreed to pay $5.3 million in the largest agreed-upon penalty in California’s gambling regulation history.  According to the Attorney General’s Office, Artichoke Joe’s failed to accurately or timely report an investigation by the federal Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to California’s Bureau of Gambling Control, as required under the Gambling Control Act of 1998.  As a result of the federal investigation, Artichoke Joe’s admitted that it failed to implement and maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and failed to report certain suspicious activity, in violation of the Bank Secrecy Act; the casino will pay a separate $5 million penalty to resolve those charges.  CA AG

January 15, 2021

Capital One, N.A. will pay a $390 million civil penalty following its admission that it violated the Bank Secrecy Act including by failing to implement and maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, and failing to file thousands of suspicious activity reports (SARs) and currency transaction reports (CTRs) including transactions in its high-risk Check Cashing Group.  As a result, from at least 2008 to 2014, millions of dollars of transactions were unreported, allowing funds connected with organized crime, tax evasion, and other financial crimes to be laundered through the U.S. financial system.  FINCEN

January 14, 2021

Indonesia-based paper products manufacturer PT Bukit Muria Jaya will pay $1.6 million and enter into a deferred prosecution agreement with a compliance program to resolve charges that the company illegally shipped products to North Korea in violation of U.S. sanctions law, and took steps to conceal the true nature of the transactions from U.S. banks.  DOJ; OFAC

January 4, 2021

French bank Union de Banques Arabes et Françaises will pay $8.6 million to resolve an investigation into its operation of U.S. dollar accounts on behalf of Syrian financial institutions subject to U.S. sanctions.  UBAF’s practices allowed the sanctioned entities to conduct transactions through a U.S. bank following internal transfers between the sanctioned entities and non-sanctioned entities that were also UBAF customers.  OFAC

August 10, 2020

Greenwich, Connecticut-based brokerage firm Interactive Brokers LLC will pay fines and disgorgement totaling $23.7 million to the SEC and CFTC, as well as a $15 million penalty to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), to resolve allegations related to the firm's anti-money laundering policies.  The SEC penalty of $11.5 million resolves charges that over the course of one year the brokerage failed to file more than 150 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) for U.S. microcap securities trades it executed on behalf of its customers.  The SEC order finds that defendant failed to recognize red flags concerning transactions, failed to properly investigate suspicious activity, and failed to file SARs even when suspicious transactions were flagged by compliance personnel. The $11.5 CFTC penalty, together with over $700,000 in restitution, resolves charges including that the firm, which is a registered futures commission merchant, failed to detect and report suspicious transactions, including in its handling of the accounts of Haena Park.  SEC; CFTC

July 7, 2020

Deutsche Bank AG and Deutsche Bank Trust Company America will pay a $150 million penalty to New York in a settlement with the State’s Department of Financial Services resolving charges that the bank failed to adequately monitor the activity of its customer Jeffrey Epstein and failed to adequately monitor its international corresponding banking relationships with Danske Bank Estonia and FBME Bank.  In the case of Epstein, Deutsche Bank processed hundreds of transactions totaling millions of dollars that allegedly should have prompted additional scrutiny.  In the case of Danske Bank and FBME, Deutsche Bank was alleged to have been put on notice that those foreign banks were engaged in money laundering but, despite assigning the highest risk ratings to those institutions, failed to take appropriate actions to prevent the processing of suspicious transactions by those banks through Deutsche Bank accounts.  NY

May 19, 2020

Payment processing company First Data Merchant Services, LLC will pay $40.2 million to resolve FTC charges that it laundered, or assisted laundering of, credit card transactions for scams facilitated by Chi “Vincent” Ko and his company First Pay Solutions LLC, which operated as an independent sales agent for First Data.  Ko allegedly opened hundreds of merchant accounts to process payments for scams that targeted hundreds of thousands of consumers, and First Data knowingly processed payments for those scams.  FTC