Law enforcement agencies and tax authorities in the US have been presented with millions of dollars from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) funded by a financial settlement resulting from an international bank’s admission of guilt to concealing deficiencies in its anti-money laundering programme.

Some of the deficiencies found at the California subsidiary of Netherlands-based Rabobank related to trade-based money laundering (TBML).

Beneficiaries

Of a total of US$119 million in forfeitures imposed on the bank by the IRS, US$20.8 million has gone to the San Diego Police Department. The Chula Vista Police Department received US$5.9 million for equipment, infrastructure and technology.

The California Franchise Tax Board received a US$20.8 million allocation. The IRS Criminal Investigation’s is retaining a portion of the funds that will be deposited with the Treasury Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture. It funds programmes aimed at disrupting and dismantling criminal enterprises, officials said.

Concealing deficiencies

In May, Rabobank National Association of Roseville was ordered to pay a statutory fine of US$500,000 and a settlement of nearly US$369 million.

The bank admitted conspiring to obstruct its primary regulator, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, by concealing deficiencies in its anti-money-laundering programme.