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Court Orders Bank To Forfeit Funds Laundered With Assistance Of Branch Teller
On June 18, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland announced that a federal judge ordered a bank to forfeit $560,000 in drug proceeds laundered through the bank on which the bank failed to file currency transaction reports. The DOJ claimed that a member of a drug trafficking organization asked a teller at a Maryland bank branch to convert the proceeds from the sale of illegal drugs from small denomination bills to $100 bills, and paid the teller a one percent fee for each transaction for making the exchange without filing a currency transaction report. The government filed a civil action in February 2014 seeking forfeiture and alleging that the money was subject to forfeiture because the bank failed to file currency transactions reports on bank transactions in amounts in excess of $10,000, as required by law. The teller admitted that on each occasion she converted the bills without filing or causing anyone else at the bank to file a currency transaction report. She was sentenced to a month in prison followed by eight months of home detention for failing to file currency transaction reports on suspected drug proceeds, and must perform community service and forfeit the $5,000 she was paid in the scheme.