Coral Gables-based Gibraltar Private Bank and Trust has been fined $4m by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for failing to report activities consistent with money laundering.
FinCEN found that the bank failed to timely file 120 suspicious activity reports, or SARs, that corresponded to nearly $558m in financial transactions between 2009 and 2013.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Access deeper industry intelligence
Experience unmatched clarity with a single platform that combines unique data, AI, and human expertise.
Additionally, the bank was also fined $2.5m by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for similar failures.
The anti-money laundering (AML) program deficiencies also delayed Gibraltar’s SAR reporting regarding accounts related to Florida attorney Scott Rothstein’s $1.2bn Ponzi scheme, according to the regulator.
Rothstein is currently serving a 50-year prison sentence for operating the Ponzi scheme.
FinCEN alleged that Gibraltar’s transaction-monitoring system contained incomplete and inaccurate account-opening information and customer-risk profiles.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataThe bank also failed to train its compliance staff, failed to implement a customer-identification program and failed to address an automated monitoring system that generated a large number of false positives, leading to delays in transaction reviews, the agency said in a statement.
The OCC is taking this enforcement action in coordination with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Meanwhile, Gibraltar has agreed to pay a $2.5m fine to the OCC and a $1.5m penalty to FinCEN.
FinCEN director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said: "We may never know how that scheme might have been disrupted had Gibraltar more rigorously complied with its obligations under the law. This bank’s failure to implement and maintain an effective AML program exposed its customers, its banking peers, and our financial system to significant abuse."
