The bank allowed hundreds of millions of dollars in “untraceable cash” to be deposited at its rural bank branches in California and then withdrawn via wire transfers, checks, and cash transactions, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in an official statement according to CNN Money.
Rabobank executives were accused by the DOJ of coming up with a series of measures to prevent the investigation of suspicious transactions, customers and accounts. They created a list of “verified” customers whose transactions were not subject to additional reviews, even if they generated internal alerts. That “verified list” ballooned to more than 1,000 customers by 2012, from just 10 in 2009, the DOJ said.
Furthermore, the bank’s Calexico branch, located about two blocks from the US-Mexico border, was the bank’s “highest performing” branch in the region because of the high level of cash deposits from Mexico.
The bank will also have to pay a USD 50 million penalty to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
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