Bank of America Fined After Late $5B Suspicious-Activity Reports

Bank of America backed bank-style anti-money-laundering rules for crypto firms in 2023. On Oct. 13, 2026, U.S. regulators announced penalties exceeding $1.2 billion against the bank and found that it filed reports on more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions late.

The Treasury Department found that Bank of America admitted to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act through weaknesses in its anti-money-laundering program, due diligence on foreign correspondent accounts and suspicious-activity reporting. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency imposed a $750 million civil penalty, the largest such penalty it has assessed against a bank.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control separately announced an $11.6 million settlement covering 475 apparent sanctions violations.

More than $1 billion of the late-reported transactions involved priority illicit-finance and national-security risks. They included Chinese money-laundering networks and possible trade-based laundering near the U.S. southwestern border. The $5 billion figure covers suspicious transactions reported late, not a confirmed amount of money that was laundered.

The OCC found weak transaction monitoring across trillions of dollars in activity. Its findings also cited late reports involving billions of dollars, insufficient expertise among Bank Secrecy Act staff, inadequate training, audit failures and weak efforts to address problems identified in a December 2024 cease-and-desist order.

Treasury found that the bank relied heavily on law-enforcement inquiries, referrals from other financial institutions and other outside interventions to identify suspicious activity. Internal monitoring systems identified a smaller share of the activity, according to the department.

OCC Comptroller Jonathan Gould characterized the problems since the 2024 order as “widespread breakdowns.” He noted that Bank of America processes hundreds of trillions of dollars annually and has a high and rising risk of illicit finance.

The findings cover several years, including the period after Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan testified before the Senate Banking Committee in December 2023. Senator Elizabeth Warren first asked whether the bank could detect, report and stop potential terrorist-financing activity. Moynihan answered yes.

Warren then asked whether crypto companies handling financial transactions should follow the same anti-money-laundering rules as banks. Moynihan replied, “Absolutely.” He serves on the board of the Bank Policy Institute and has previously been its chair.

In August 2026, the Bank Policy Institute published a paper titled “Same Risks, Same Safeguards.” It argued that digital-asset rules leave gaps involving exchanges, custodians and decentralized-finance companies, with a focus on stablecoin activity. The group also supported 2023 efforts to extend Bank Secrecy Act requirements across the digital-asset industry.

Figure executive Mike Cagney has cited the Bank of America action while arguing that crypto companies handle customer identity checks better than U.S. banks. The bank’s findings concern ongoing transaction monitoring, suspicious-activity reports and correspondent-account checks. Know-your-customer controls generally concern identifying customers when they open accounts.

Crypto companies have also faced anti-money-laundering enforcement. Binance pleaded guilty in 2023 to conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act, operating as an unregistered money transmitter and violating sanctions rules. It agreed to pay $4.3 billion and accept an independent monitor. FinCEN found that reports filed from September 2023 through December 2025 identified about $12.7 billion in suspected financial activity linked to digital-asset investment scams.