The U.S. imposed a $4 million civil money penalty on a Florida private bank for anti-money laundering compliance failures, including delays in filing reports relating to a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme run by jailed attorney Scott Rothstein, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Coral Gables, Fla.-based Gibraltar Private Bank and Trust Co.’s “substantial” anti-money laundering compliance program deficiencies led to its failure to monitor and detect suspicious activity despite red flags, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. The deficiencies caused Gibraltar to fail to file on a timely basis at least 120 suspicious activity reports involving nearly $558 million in transactions between 2009 and 2013, much of which related to Rothstein’s Ponzi scheme, for which he was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Read more. (Subscription required.)
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