Treasury fines Bank of America $1.2 billion for alleged money laundering, sanction law violations

The Treasury Department on Oct. 13, 2026, announced a $1.2 billion fine against Bank of America, the third-largest penalty in its history, for anti-money laundering and sanctions violations. Of that sum, $750 million goes to the OCC as its largest fine ever. Bank of America admitted it willfully violated the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act. It failed to timely report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions to FinCEN, with roughly $1 billion tied to national security risks including Chinese Money Laundering Networks and southwest border illicit finance. OCC found the bank's transaction monitoring system deficient, failing to properly monitor trillions of dollars in transactions. An $11.6 million OFAC settlement covers 475 apparent violations of sanctions programs including Russia, Belarus, Iran, Burma, Somalia, narcotics, and global terrorism. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said such failures expose the entire U.S. financial system to significant illicit finance risks and that even the biggest institutions are not above the law. Comptroller Jonathan Gould said Bank of America processes hundreds of trillions of dollars yearly and has a high, increasing risk profile for money laundering, terrorist financing and other illicit activities. Bank of America said it worked with regulators to reach the resolutions, has invested billions of dollars in technology and dedicated thousands of employees to combat financial crime, and will continue reporting hundreds of thousands of suspicious activity reports each year. The bank reports Q3 earnings Wednesday before 7 a.m. ET. CONTESTED: Regulators describe willful BSA violations and deficient monitoring of trillions in transactions; Bank of America says compliance is serious, it is far along on the required work, and it supports thousands of law enforcement investigations yearly.