Headlines - It makes you wonder?

Why didn’t Bank of America get more than just a hand slap for not detecting money laundering for terrorists?

Is there more to the story?

I wonder how much in banking fees Bank of America made while all of their “detection” systems apparantly “didn’t work?”

October 2003

Bank of America, SAS to Battle Money Laundering

The International Monetary Fund estimates that between $800 billion and $2 trillion is laundered each year worldwide. Bank of America, currently the third-largest bank in the United States by assets and the nation's largest consumer bank, has selected SAS, the leader in business intelligence, to power its anti-money laundering program.

Bank of America, a SAS customer for 25 years, said it would use SAS to address requirements of the USA PATRIOT Act, passed by Congress after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Act requires financial institutions with accounts in the United States to establish "due diligence" policies and procedures to prevent, detect and report possible instances of money laundering or terrorist financing.

Bank of America said it then uses predictive models from SAS to understand and examine potentially suspicious patterns or anomalies in financial transactions. The ability to monitor unusual or suspect behavior is essential for its anti-money laundering effort, according to Bank of America.

In addition to analyzing suspect behavior to detect and prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, the bank will monitor and analyze broker behavior, reporting risky situations, to help protect customer and company interests.

September 2006

Bank of America settles money laundering probe

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC - news), the No. 2 U.S. bank, has agreed after a multiyear investigation to pay $7.5 million to settle charges it failed to prevent money laundering, the Manhattan District Attorney's office said on Wednesday.
Bank of America failed to detect that Brazilian companies were using a money transfer business' bank account to launder money, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said in a statement.
Money transferers transmitted an estimated $230 billion of funds in 2005 globally, but regulators and prosecutors have been trying to clamp down on the business to prevent money laundering and choke off funding for terror organizations.