DALLAS—A Texas company that transferred millions of dollars from the U.S. to Africa has admitted that it failed to adequately guard against money laundering, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham announced.
Ping Express U.S. LLC pleaded guilty to failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, the U.S. Department of Justice reported.
“Through our special agents and forensic accountants, we work endlessly to eradicate crimes involving money laundering and bulk cash smuggling,” said Christopher Miller, acting special agent in charge of homeland security investigations, Dallas. “Our investigative reach provides access to a wide range of financial networks allowing HSI to disrupt any criminal organization attempting to exploit global trade.”
Fees Charged
According to court documents, the company – which was licensed to transmit money but was not licensed to conduct currency exchange – charged U.S. customers a fee to remit money to beneficiaries in Nigeria and other African nations.
By law, Ping was required to report any suspicious transactions to regulators. In plea papers, it admitted that it failed to file a single report over a three-year period, despite a significant amount of suspicious customer activity, DoJ stated.
The Justice Department said the company outlined its anti-money laundering policy in a memo to state regulators, claiming it would cap first-time customer transactions at $499, cap daily transactions at $3,000, and cap monthly transactions at $4,500. However, in plea papers, the company admitted it allowed more than 1,500 customers to violate these rules. In one instance, Ping allowed a customer to remit more than $80,000 in a single month – more than 17 times the purported limit, DoJ explained.
Additional Crimes
DoJ further said Ping also admitted it conducted money transmission business in states in which it was not licensed to do so, including Nevada, New Jersey, Utah, West Virginia, and Connecticut.
The company also claimed to have software that could detect and deter transmissions initiated in “unlicensed” states, but in reality, it admitted, the program didn’t function. In its summaries to state regulators, Ping chose to include a column labeled “IP Location,” but only recorded states in which Ping was properly licensed: Texas, Maryland, Georgia, Washington, and Washington, D.C., according to the Justice Department.