Agricultural
Bank of China has agreed to pay a $215 million penalty for falsifying
transaction documents involving China & Russia and trying to cover up US
dollar trades with sanctioned Middle East Countries.
The
New York State's Department of Financial Services (DFS) said that officials of
the Chinese bank's New York branch were found to have masked U.S. dollar
transactions that would have revealed violations of trade sanctions and money
laundering laws. The Bank officials also silenced a whistle-blower who
attempted to carry out internal investigations. That action led to the officer's resignation
in 2015.
DFS
further discovered that certain Invoices involving China and Russia appeared to
have been falsified. Other documents suggested that U.S. dollar trades were
made with Iranian counterparties, and included information indicating dollar
transactions made for the benefit of a sanctioned Iranian party. The DFS also accused the Chinese bank of
conducting dollar transactions involving an Afghan Bank client associated with
narcotics traffickers and illicit cash flows.
U.S.
regulators have been taking stringent measures on money laundering breaches in
recent years.
In
2014 BNP Paribas in France was ordered to pay $8.9 billion fine for
transactions involving clients in sanctioned countries.
In
2015, the Construction Bank of China received a warning from U.S. regulators
for alleged money laundering violations, though no fine was imposed.
According
to the Financial Times, the latest fines on the Agricultural Bank of China are
the first such penalty on an Asian bank beside Japanese banks.
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