Money Orders Just Under $3,000, Many Bought Along the Border: Bank of America Hit With $1.2 Billion Treasury Penalty for Missing $5 Billion in Suspicious Activity
Money orders bought three at a time and stopping just short of $3,000, with about one in three of those batches traced to purchase points along the U.S.-Mexico border. That is one of the patterns the U.S. Treasury says Bank of America failed to report. On Oct. 13, 2026, Treasury announced more than $1.21 billion in penalties against the bank. It called them the third-largest penalty in Treasury history.
What Treasury says the bank missed
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) assessed a $1.2 billion penalty. According to Treasury’s release, the bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions on time. Over $1 billion of that involved what Treasury calls priority risks, including transactions “indicative of Chinese Money Laundering Networks” and possible trade-based money laundering “with a substantial nexus to the southwest border.” The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency added a $750 million penalty, which counts toward the total. Separately, OFAC reached an $11.6 million sanctions settlement covering programs that include narcotics. FinCEN says the bank admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act.
Money orders and online car auctions
FinCEN’s consent order covers January 2018 through July 2025. Its central example is two unnamed online auto-auction customers. Between October 2020 and May 2025, FinCEN says, they received more than 680,000 suspicious money-order deposits worth over $660 million. Many came in sequential sets of three totaling $2,900 to $3,000, just under the $3,000 level at which money-order sellers must identify buyers. The order calls this a pattern consistent with structuring. It also says bank case notes from 2016 tied some of one customer’s transactions to investigations into narcotics trafficking through vehicle purchases and shipments.
What happens next
Under the order, a third party must review past activity and report suspicious transactions the bank missed. An independent review must also test how well the bank handles risks including “the U.S. Southwest border, cartels, and possible narcotics trafficking.” Al Jazeera quoted the bank as saying, “Financial crime compliance is serious, and we are responsible for getting it right.”
Neither Treasury nor FinCEN named any cartel as the source of the funds, and no one has been criminally charged in this action.
Sources
- U.S. Department of the Treasury, “U.S. Treasury Announces Record Enforcement Actions Against Bank of America,” Oct. 13, 2026
- FinCEN, “FinCEN Assesses $1.2 Billion Penalty against Bank of America,” Oct. 13, 2026, and the consent order (PDF)
- Al Jazeera, “US fines Bank of America $1.2bn for money laundering, sanctions violations,” Oct. 14, 2026
- Photos: Brendan McDermid/Reuters, via Al Jazeera; map from the FinCEN consent order (public domain)
Reported Oct. 14, 2026, from the Treasury and FinCEN releases, FinCEN’s consent order, and Al Jazeera. These are civil regulatory penalties, not criminal charges. FinCEN did not identify the auto-auction customers or the people who bought the money orders, and it did not tie any specific transaction to a named cartel.