BoA Hit With Record Breaking Fine, Confesses to Wild Violations Involving Narcos, Terrorism, Money Laundering, Russian, Iran, and Others
The U.S. Treasury Department has hit Bank of America with $1.2 billion in fines for violating a whole host of anti-money laundering and sanctions laws.
“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,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
“Today’s actions send a clear message that even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law,” he added.
The fines are the largest ever filed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the third largest ever filed by the Treasury Department.
Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced enforcement actions imposing more than $1.21 billion in penalties against Bank of America for violations of anti-money laundering and sanctions laws. These actions represent the third-largest penalty in Treasury history and the largest in @USOCC history.
https://t.co/O7PCfyFPqO— Treasury Department (@USTreasury) October 13, 2026
The department reported that the fines were “assessed” by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as a penalty “for the Bank’s failure to mitigate and report priority national security risks, including Chinese Money Laundering Networks and illicit finance along the southwest border.”
The actions against Bank of America also included an $11.6 million settlement agreement over “violations of numerous sanctions programs, including on Iran, Russia, narcotics, and global terrorism.”
The Treasury Department further noted that Bank of America has admitted to having “willfully violated” the Bank Secrecy Act.
“Financial crime compliance is serious, and we are responsible for getting it right,” Bank of America said in a statement reported by the Associated Press.
“We worked with regulators to reach these penalty resolutions stemming from violations cited in the previously reported 2024 (Comptroller of the Currency) Consent Order and FinCEN’s investigation,” the statement continued.
As of Wednesday morning, Bank of America’s stock appeared to be down:
Bank of America $BAC is down by almost 5% in pre market trading
🔴 https://t.co/Q328S9T0TF
— Evan (@StockMKTNewz) October 14, 2026
Appearing at CNN’s Global Perspectives panel in Bangkok on Wednesday, top Bank of America official Bernard Mensah stressed that the bank is working hard to get back on track compliance-wise.
“Financial crimes compliance is very serious and really important,” he said, according to CNN. “We we take it very, very seriously. We spent a huge amount of resources, trying to get it right, and we think we are getting it right. But these are very high standards, and so we’re working towards that.”
According to the Bank of America, which just paid a $72.5 million settlement over a lawsuit related to Jeffrey Epstein last spring, the $1.2 billion in fines will impact the company’s quarterly earnings results slated to be released on Wednesday.
“Our third-quarter results will include a non-tax-deductible charge of $1.2 billion impacting net income by approximately 17 cents per share,” the company said in a statement to CNN.
“We have already dedicated substantial personnel and resources to our ongoing remediation efforts, and those costs are in the current expense base,” the statement continued.
As for the reason behind the bank’s failure to stop illicit transactions, CNN noted that the bank’s “sanctions-screening filter had a design flaw that prevented it from appropriately prioritizing certain potentially prohibited transactions.”
“When a transaction matched an individual’s name and date of birth on the US Treasury Department’s sanctions list, the bank’s system did not flag the transaction as high priority,” CNN added.
The bank made headlines in August when a conservative advocacy group accused it of being one of many corporations still actively keeping “wokeness” alive and well.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
