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The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has announced the renewal of its Geographic Targeting Orders (GTOs) that require U.S. title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind shell companies used in non-financed purchases of residential real estate.

The terms of the GTOs are effective beginning October 16, 2024, and ending on April 14, 2025. The GTOs continue to provide valuable data on the purchase of residential real estate by persons possibly involved in various illicit enterprises. Renewing the GTOs will further assist in tracking illicit funds and other criminal or illicit activity, as well as continuing to inform FinCEN’s regulatory efforts in this sector.

FinCEN renewed the GTOs that cover certain counties and major U.S. metropolitan areas in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Texas, Washington, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

The purchase price threshold remains $300,000 for each covered metropolitan area, with the exception of the City and County of Baltimore, where the purchase price threshold is $50,000.

In August 2024, FinCEN issued a final rule requiring certain industry professionals to report information to FinCEN about non-financed transfers of residential real estate to a legal entity or trust. This nationwide reporting framework will replace the GTOs and goes into effect on December 1, 2025.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have issued a statement on supervisory practices regarding financial institutions affected by Hurricane Milton. The agencies recognize the serious impact of Hurricane Milton on the customers and operations of many financial institutions and will provide appropriate regulatory assistance to affected institutions subject to their supervision. The agencies encourage institutions operating in the affected areas to meet the financial services needs of their communities.

The agencies' statement addresses particularly the areas of lending, temporary facilities, publishing requirements, and regulatory reporting requirements.

Yesterday, the Treasury Department announced that OFAC, in a joint action with Canada, designated the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, or “Samidoun,” a sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. Also designated was Khaled Barakat, a member of the PFLP’s leadership. Together, Samidoun and Barakat play critical roles in external fundraising for the PFLP.

For identification information on Samidoun and Barakat, see BankersOnline’s October 15, 2024, OFAC Update.

The FDIC has issued FIL-73-2024 to help financial institutions and facilitate recovery in areas of Arizona affected by the San Carlos Apache Tribe Watch Fire, and FIL-74-2024 to assist banks and facilitate recovery in areas of Florida affected by Hurricane Milton.

On Friday, the Treasury Department reported that in response to Iran's October 1 attack on Israel, the U.S. is expanding sanctions on Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical sectors, to intensify financial pressure on Iran, limiting the regime’s ability to earn critical energy revenues to undermine stability in the region and attack U.S. partners and allies. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, has identified the petroleum and petrochemical sectors of the Iranian economy under authority of Executive Order (E.O.) 13902, which allows Treasury to target a broader range of activities relating to Iran’s trade in petroleum and petrochemical products. E.O. 13902 provides authority to identify and impose sanctions on key sectors of Iran’s economy to deny the Iranian government financial resources that may be used to fund and support its nuclear program, missile development, terrorism and terrorist proxy networks, and malign regional influence.

OFAC also designated 10 entities in multiple jurisdictions and identified 17 vessels as blocked property, under E.O. 13846, for their involvement in shipments of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products in support of the U.S.-designated National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Triliance Petrochemical Co. Limited (Triliance). The U.S. Department of State also designated six entities and identified six vessels as blocked property pursuant to E.O. 13846 for knowingly engaging in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing of petroleum or petroleum products from Iran.

For the names and identifying information of the designated entities and vessels, and a link to the Treasury Secretary's determination document, see Friday's BankersOnline OFAC Summary.

The FDIC has posted an agenda for its next Board of Directors meeting, to be held at 10 a.m. on October 17, 2024.

The meeting will be open to the public for observation via webcast.

The current agenda lists the following items for consideration at the meeting:

• Briefing: Semi-annual Update on the Deposit Insurance Fund Restoration Plan
• Designated Reserve Ratio for 2025
• Delay of Compliance Date for [Certain] [Subpart A] Amendments to FDIC Official Sign and Advertising Rule
• Minutes of a previous Board meeting

FinCEN has published [89 FR 82499] in today's Federal Register an order issued under authority from the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act to prohibit certain transmittals of funds by any covered financial institution involving PM2BTC, a financial institution operating outside of the United States determined to be of a primary money laundering concern in connection with Russian illicit finance.

The order became effective on publication.

The OCC, Federal Reserve Board, Department of Justice and FinCEN have announced coordinated actions against Toronto-Dominion Bank, TD Bank US Holding Company, TD Bank, N.A., and TD Bank USA, N.A. for deficiencies in the bank’s Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance program. Yesterday’s actions also impose a restriction on the growth of the bank and a measure designed to ensure that the bank invests sufficient resources to remediate its BSA/AML deficiencies in a timely manner.

The regulators and the Justice Department found that the bank failed to develop and maintain a BSA/AML program reasonably designed to assure and monitor compliance with the BSA and its implementing regulations. Deficiencies in the bank’s BSA/AML program included those related to internal controls and risk management practices; risk assessments; customer due diligence; customer risk ratings; suspicious activity identification, evaluation, and reporting; governance; staffing; independent testing; and training, among others.

The OCC also found that the bank had significant, systemic breakdowns in its transaction monitoring program. The bank processed hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions with clear indicia of highly suspicious activity, creating a potential for significant money laundering, terrorist financing, or other illicit financial transactions. The bank repeatedly failed to take appropriate and timely corrective action to address the highly suspicious activity and failed to properly emphasize BSA/AML compliance.

The bank had a systemic breakdown in its processes to identify and report suspicious activity, and a pattern or practice of noncompliance with the suspicious activity report filing requirement, resulting in numerous violations. The bank also violated currency transaction reporting requirements on numerous occasions.

• The OCC imposed a $450 million civil money penalty and imposed a limit on asset growth on TD Bank, N.A. and TD Bank USA, N.A.
• FinCEN imposed a $1.3 billion penalty and a four-year monitoring requirement.
• The Federal Reserve Board reported it has fined Toronto-Dominion Bank $123.5 million and imposed enhanced measures to comply with anti-money laundering laws and to correct its risk management deficiencies.
• The Department of Justice announced that TD Bank N.A., and its parent company TD Bank US Holding Company pleaded guilty and agreed to pay over $1.8 billion in penalties.

For additional information see "TD Bank to pay $3 billion and restrict growth for BSA/AML deficiencies," in the BankersOnline Penalties pages.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a Public Service Announcement concerning a counterfeit check scheme in which fraudsters target law firms engaged in collections work by deceptively contracting their services to ultimately defraud them. The FBI said the scheme may focus on any type of representation where a lawyer is hired to assist in the transfer or collection of money, e.g. real estate, collection matters, collaborative law agreements in family matters, etc. This scenario continues to be replayed as part of a sophisticated scam that targets collections lawyers and the scope is constantly evolving.

In general, said the FBI, the scheme involves a phony debtor sending a fraudulent check to a collections law firm to satisfy a non-existing debt, and the law firm wire transferring all or part of the check to its client -- the party behind the scheme. The law firm's bank charges the deposited check back to the law firm when it learns it was fraudulent, and the law firm is left with the loss.

The FDIC has issued FIL-72-2024 to extend the comment period on its August 24, 2024, proposed amendments that would strengthen the prudential protections of the safety and soundness rules on brokered deposit in 12 CFR 337.6 and 12 CFR 303.243.

The comment period, which was scheduled to end on October 22, has been extended to end on November 21, 2024.