Interactive Brokers fined $38 million for “widespread AML failures”
Source: FNG Gerald Segal
- Interactive Brokers did not reasonably surveil hundreds of millions of dollars of its customers’ wire transfers for money laundering concerns. Those wires included millions of dollars of third-party deposits into customers’ accounts from countries recognized as “high risk” by U.S. and international AML agencies.
- Interactive Brokers did not reasonably investigate suspicious activity when it found it because it lacked sufficient personnel and a reasonably designed case management system. Even after a compliance manager at the firm warned his supervisor that “we are chronically understaffed” and “struggling to review reports in a timely manner,” it took Interactive Brokers years to materially increase its AML staffing or augment its AML systems.
- Interactive Brokers failed to establish and implement policies, procedures, and internal controls reasonably designed to cause the reporting of suspicious transactions as required by the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). In certain instances, the firm’s AML staff identified suspicious conduct, including manipulative trading and other fraudulent or criminal activity. But the firm only filed Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) regarding that suspicious conduct after it was prompted to do so by FINRA’s investigation.
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