Bank of America has been fined $1.2bn (£910m) for failing to detect potential money laundering and other illegal activity, the US Treasury Department said on Tuesday.
The banking giant failed to report over $5bn in suspicious activity to the government, $1bn of which posed national security and illicit finance risks, the Treasury said.
Those failures included not flagging transactions that possibly involved Chinese money laundering networks or trade-based laundering "with a substantial nexus to the southwest border", according to the Treasury.
This is the same bank that once said "BITCOIN.HELPS CRIMINALS HIDE ILLEGAL MONEY."
Mmm...
I'm not sure how I feel about the government constantly going after companies for failing to stop criminals. Similar to how some cities sued car manufacturers for their cars being too easy to steal.
Imposing liability for failure to stop crime on companies just passes costs down to legitimate consumers. Crime should be stopped by going after criminals, not the companies who provided products in a neutral manner.
100% agree with @SimpleStacker. This is the core neutral tool principle.
If you punish Ford because a thief used a Mustang for getaway, you make all Mustangs more expensive + you don't actually stop car theft. Same for suing phone makers because criminals use phones.
We saw this with Tornado Cash - sanction the tool instead of the criminal using it. It creates perverse incentive: companies then become private police force, spending resources on surveillance instead of better product.
The cost always lands on regular users - higher fees, KYC friction, worse privacy.
Let law enforcement go after the actual actors. Tools are neutral until proven otherwise.
"I'm shocked, shocked, to find that money laundering is going on in here"
@Wumbo lol Casablanca in a bank
BofA compliance dept watching $5bn slide while writing op-eds about Bitcoin is peak clown world. $1.2bn fine is just the fee to keep laundering.
The irony writes itself.
BofA: Bitcoin helps criminals hide illegal money.
Also BofA: fails to report $5bn in suspicious activity, $1bn of which was national security risk.
Banks launder $2 TRILLION a year and get a fine that's 3 days profit. Bitcoiners move $20 and get KYC/AML, OFAC, travel rule, prison.
$1.2bn fine on a $3T bank is 0.04% - like fining me $40 for losing $100k.
This is why we Bitcoin.