US Treasury Fines Bank of America for Sanctions Violations, Including Those Related to Belarus
Reform.news Editorial Team · 14 October 2026, 13:13
https://reform.news/en/us-treasury-fines-bank-of-america-for-sanctions-violations-including-those-related-to-belarus/The US Department of the Treasury has announced enforcement actions against Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the United States, totalling more than $1.21 billion for violations of anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance laws. The department announced the measures on October 13.
The violations included delays in reporting suspicious transactions and processing payments in circumvention of sanctions restrictions, including those related to Belarus and Russia.
The largest portion of the penalty, $1.2 billion, was imposed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). According to the agency, the bank failed to report suspicious transactions worth more than $5 billion in a timely manner.
The FinCEN order provides specific examples involving transactions with Belarus. In August 2022, for instance, one of the bank’s customers (Customer A) received 290 incoming bank transfers from Belarus totalling $3.5 million. The recipient was associated with the online car auction industry.
The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) imposed a $750 million penalty on the bank for deficiencies in its anti-money laundering programme. According to the regulator, the bank’s transaction monitoring system failed to adequately oversee transactions worth trillions of dollars, resulting in delays in reporting suspicious activity.
Bank of America also agreed to pay $11.6 million to settle claims brought by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). These concern 475 alleged violations of US sanctions programmes, including restrictions targeting Belarus, Russia, Iran, Myanmar and Somalia, as well as sanctions related to drug trafficking and international terrorism. According to OFAC, the total value of the transactions was nearly $15 million.
” These apparent violations occurred when Bank of America channeled correspondent banking payments through blocked banks due to technical and human error, allowed designated individuals to make payments and withdraw funds due to poor sanctions alert calibration, failed to promptly update watchlists following OFAC designations, and mishandled business accounts associated with blocked persons due to human error”, the US Treasury Department said in a press release.
Under its agreement with FinCEN, Bank of America must engage an independent third party to conduct additional reviews of transactions that may have gone undetected and report any findings to the regulator. The agreement also provides for an independent audit of the bank’s suspicious transaction monitoring and customer screening systems.