Wells Fargo advisors fines $7 MLN by US SEC for anti-money laundering

The U.S. Securities and Exchange commission said that Wells Fargo Advisors had agreed to pay $7 million to settle charges of anti-money laundering related violations. The regulator said Wells Fargo Advisors failed to file at least 34 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) in a timely manner between April 2017 and October 2021.

Bank spokeswoman Shea Leordeanu said that at Wells Fargo Advisors, they take regulatory responsibilities seriously. This matter refers to legacy issues that impacted a transaction monitoring system and the issues were resolved promptly upon discovery. The lapse arose because the broker failed to properly implement and test a new version of its internal anti-money laundering (AML) transaction monitoring and alert system adopted in January 2019. The system failed to reconcile the different country codes used to monitor foreign wire transfers.

As a result, Wells Fargo Advisors did not timely file at least 25 SARs related to suspicious transactions in its customers’ brokerage accounts involving wire transfers to or from foreign countries it determined to be a risk for laundering, terrorist financing, or other illegal money movements. Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement said that when SEC registrants like Wells Fargo Advisors fail to comply with their AML obligations, they put the investing public at risk. He added that the SEC was sending a message to the rest of the industry that AML obligations are sacrosanct.