Treasury fines Bank of America $1.2B for violating money laundering, sanctions law

The Treasury Department on Tuesday announced it was fining Bank of America more than $1.2 billion for violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws.

The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) fined Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the country, $1.2 billion for its failure to “mitigate and report priority national security risks,” the department said in a release .

Those risks include Chinese money laundering networks and “illicit finance along the southwest border,” the Treasury noted.

The fine includes a $750 million penalty by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) over Bank of America’s “ineffective” anti-money laundering compliance program.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also reached an $11.6 million settlement with the bank for its apparent violation of “numerous” sanctions programs, including on Iran , Russia , narcotics and “global terrorism.”

The $1.2 billion penalty is the third-largest in Treasury history, while the OCC’s fine is the largest in that bureau’s history, per the Treasury.

The Hill has reached out to a Bank of America spokesperson for comment.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the release that financial institutions “are on the front lines of protecting our economic and national security.”

Bessent added, “When a bank of this size fails to meet its anti-money laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond its own walls, exposing the entire U.S. financial system to significant illicit finance risks.

“Today’s actions send a clear message that even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law.”

A spokesperson for Bank of America said the company “worked with regulators to reach these penalty resolutions” and has “invested billions of dollars in technology and dedicated thousands of employees to combat financial crime.”

FinCEN’s investigation found that Bank of America “failed to timely report” more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions.

Roughly $1 billion of those transactions posed national security and illicit finance risks, including links to Chinese money laundering networks and potential money laundering “with a substantial nexus” to the southwest border.

Bank of America “prioritized its revenues” and “effectively outsourced” a large portion of its proactive detection and reporting obligations to third parties, the Treasury noted.

Earlier this year, Bank of America reported $31.6 billion in net revenue in the second quarter, up from $30.3 billion in quarter one and an increase of 15.3 percent relative to the first quarter of 2025.

The bank will report its earnings for the third quarter on Wednesday morning.

The OCC’s probe into Bank of America found that its “deficient” transaction monitoring system resulted in the financial institution failing to properly monitor “trillions of dollars” in transactions, the bureau noted in a release .

“Every year, [Bank of America] processes hundreds of trillions of dollars in transactions across the globe. It has a high, and increasing, risk profile for money laundering, terrorist financing and other illicit activities,” added Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould, who called Bank of America’s violations “unacceptable” and “egregious.”

Under its resolution with FinCEN, Bank of America admitted to violating anti-money laundering laws and agreed to work with a third party to identify and report suspicious transactions it previously did not detect.