Banorte Fined for Lax Money Laundering Controls Reuters
go to original January 29, 2014

Wall Street's industry-funded watchdog FINRA fined Mexican bank Grupo Financiero Banorte $475,000 for inadequate money-laundering controls and for failing to register certain foreign workers who were bringing foreign money to the U.S. unit.

A U.S. unit of Banorte, Mexico's No. 4 bank by assets, opened an account for a customer with reported ties to a drug cartel and did not "detect, investigate or report the suspicious rapid movement of $28 million in and out of the account," the FINRA statement said.

FINRA said it suspended Brian Anthony Simmons, the former anti-money laundering and chief compliance officer of the bank's U.S. unit, Banorte-Ixe Securities International.

The fine also reflected the bank's failure to register about 200 to 400 so-called "foreign finders" who get paid for bringing non-U.S. business to the bank.

Read the rest at Reuters

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