SAN DIEGO—Rabobank, a California subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Cooperatieve Rabobank U.A., has been fined $500,000 for anti-money laundering violations.
The bank was sentenced before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey T. Miller for conspiring to impair, impede, and obstruct its primary regulator, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), by concealing deficiencies in its anti-money laundering program, STL News reported.
Judge Miller sentenced Rabobank to pay the statutory maximum fine of $500,000 after taking account of Rabobank’s forfeiture of $368,701,259 as well as a two-year term of probation. The half-million-dollar criminal fine coupled with Rabobank’s forfeiture of $368,701,259 stands as the largest monetary penalty paid by a criminal defendant in the history of the Southern District of California, STL News said.
In imposing sentence, Judge Miller noted that Rabobank’s conduct essentially amounted to “stiff-arming the OCC, and completely failing in its responsibility to its customers and the nation.”
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office is intent on securing the border and preventing the laundering of narco-dollars through financial institutions like Rabobank,” said U.S. Attorney Adam L. Braverman. “In doing so we will safeguard our communities and protect our citizens from drug traffickers and corporate criminals alike.”
“Rabobank’s branches on the Mexican border processed hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious transactions likely tied to international narcotics trafficking, organized crime, and money laundering,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan. “Instead of filing reports that would have alerted law enforcement to the suspicious activity, as required by law, the bank looked the other way and then compounded its misconduct by conspiring to cover-up its failures and deceiving its regulator.”