Three dates show the scale growing. On 11 December 2012, HSBC entered a deferred prosecution agreement and agreed to forfeit $1.256 billion. On 10 October 2024, TD Bank pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering, a first for a US bank. On 14 October 2025, US prosecutors moved to forfeit 127,271 bitcoin tied to Prince Group.
Why do these scandals still matter?
They still matter because the sums are large and the same anti money laundering (AML) controls keep failing. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime puts the money laundered each year at between $800 billion and $2 trillion, or 2 to 5 percent of global GDP.
The pattern is decades old. The US Senate's December 1992 report on BCCI, a bank closed worldwide on 5 July 1991, found it had laundered money in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.
The cases also show the three stages of laundering in real records. Wachovia took in bulk cash shipped from Mexican exchange houses, which is placement. The Troika network ran $8.8 billion of transactions between its own offshore companies, which is layering. Money taken from 1MDB bought a $51 million Basquiat painting and Manhattan property, which is integration.
What are the 15 biggest money laundering cases in history?
This list of famous money laundering cases, compiled by complead, formerly Sanction Scanner, counts schemes that moved criminal money, and firms that failed to stop it, where a court, prosecutor or regulator has published the record.
1. Danske Bank: EUR 200 billion through an Estonian branch
Danske Bank's Estonian branch served non resident customers, including some in Russia, on its own IT platform, outside group monitoring. The bank's own report of 19 September 2018 put the flow through about 15,000 customers at about EUR 200 billion from 2007 to 2015. That figure is total flow. Of roughly 6,200 customers examined by then, the report deemed "the vast majority" suspicious.
A correspondent bank stopped clearing the branch's dollar payments in 2013, and a whistleblower raised the alarm late that year. On 13 December 2022 Danske Bank pleaded guilty in the US to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, for misleading the US banks through which it processed $160 billion, and agreed to forfeit $2.059 billion.
2. HSBC, HSBC Mexico and the Sinaloa Cartel
From at least 2006 to 2009, HSBC Bank USA rated Mexico "standard" risk despite evidence of serious money laundering risk there. So it failed to monitor over $670 billion in wire transfers and over $9.4 billion in purchases of physical US dollars from HSBC Mexico. That $670 billion is unmonitored volume. The drug money that passed through the US bank was at least $881 million, from the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico and the Norte del Valle Cartel in Colombia. On 11 December 2012 HSBC entered a deferred prosecution agreement, forfeited $1.256 billion and agreed to pay $665 million in civil penalties.
3. 1MDB: Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund scandal
1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) was a Malaysian state fund. From about 2009 to 2014, banker Roger Ng and others misappropriated more than $2.7 billion from it, much of it from $6.5 billion of bonds Goldman Sachs underwrote in 2012 and 2013. Goldman admitted a scheme to pay over $1.6 billion in bribes to Malaysian and Abu Dhabi officials and, on 22 October 2020, agreed to pay more than $2.9 billion.
The money also helped fund "The Wolf of Wall Street". Ng was sentenced to 10 years on 9 March 2023. Jho Low, indicted in 2018, remains a fugitive; the charges against him are allegations. Because the bribes went to officials, PEP screening covers the people around a deal.
4. Wachovia Bank: drug money in $420 billion of unmonitored transactions
Wachovia Bank, then one of the largest US banks, served Mexican currency exchange houses, the casas de cambio, from 2004 through 2007 with wires, bulk cash and check deposits. Court documents show it knew of the drug money risk in those houses as early as 1996, and that other US banks had already stopped doing business with them. Wachovia expanded the business anyway.
It failed to monitor more than $420 billion of transactions with the exchange houses, including at least $373 billion by wire and more than $4 billion in bulk cash from May 2004 to May 2007. Of that volume, the part proven to be drug proceeds was the $110 million the bank forfeited. With a $50 million fine on top, its deferred prosecution agreement of 17 March 2010 carried what prosecutors called the largest penalty in any Bank Secrecy Act case prosecuted to that date.
5. Nauru: the island that licensed 400 offshore banks
The Pacific island of Nauru sold offshore banking licenses to foreigners. FinCEN reported in 2000 that Nauru had licensed 400 offshore banks, shell banks with no physical presence there or anywhere else, and a 1,000 square foot wooden building was their "home". The US Treasury named Nauru a primary money laundering concern on 20 December 2002, citing bank secrecy and weak supervision of offshore banks.
Treasury's 2008 notice withdrawing that finding records that the Financial Action Task Force had put Nauru on its list of non cooperative countries and territories in June 2000. After Nauru took remedial measures, the finding was withdrawn on 18 April 2008.
6. Liberty Reserve: a digital currency built for laundering
Liberty Reserve, incorporated in Costa Rica in 2006, ran a digital currency built, prosecutors said, to let users move money anonymously. They charged it on 28 May 2013, alleging more than one million users, about 55 million transactions and more than $6 billion laundered in suspected criminal proceeds. Police in 17 countries acted, and Treasury named the company a primary money laundering concern under section 311. Founder Arthur Budovsky pleaded guilty in January 2016 to conspiring to launder money and was sentenced to 20 years on 6 May 2016.
7. Troika Laundromat: a Russian investment bank's offshore network
The Troika Laundromat was a network of at least 75 offshore companies, run from 2006 to early 2013 and orchestrated by Troika Dialog, then Russia's largest private investment bank, OCCRP reported on 4 March 2019 from leaked banking records. Through it $4.6 billion flowed in and $4.8 billion flowed out, while $8.8 billion of internal transactions hid where the cash came from. Invoices for fake trade deals were signed by proxies. Ukio Bankas in Lithuania, which held the accounts, questioned some payments, but reporters found no evidence it reported them.
8. Deutsche Bank: the mirror trading scandal
Deutsche Bank's Moscow equities desk took both sides of matched deals. One client bought Russian blue chip shares for rubles in Moscow, and a connected client sold the same shares, in the same quantity and at the same price, through London for dollars. The FCA found more than 2,400 such pairs between April 2012 and October 2014.
Customers used these mirror trades to move more than $6 billion out of Russia, part of about $10 billion of unknown origin that left through the bank. The FCA fined Deutsche Bank £163,076,224 on 31 January 2017, a day after New York's DFS imposed $425 million.
9. Credit Suisse: the Mozambique tuna bonds
From 2013 to 2015, Credit Suisse's London arm and another bank arranged more than $2 billion of government guaranteed loans to three Mozambican state companies for coastal surveillance, tuna fishing and shipyards. More than $200 million was diverted to bribes and kickbacks: more than $150 million to Mozambican officials and about $50 million to Credit Suisse bankers. On 19 October 2021 Credit Suisse resolved US and UK cases: more than $547 million assessed, about $475 million paid, and a £147,190,200 penalty in the FCA's final notice.
Former finance minister Manuel Chang, bribed with $7 million to sign the guarantees, was sentenced to 102 months on 17 January 2025.
10. FinCEN Files: $2 trillion of flagged transactions
The FinCEN Files are more than 2,100 suspicious activity reports that banks filed with the US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, leaked to BuzzFeed News and analyzed by the ICIJ on 20 September 2020. They flagged more than $2 trillion of transactions from 1999 to 2017, yet were under 0.02 percent of reports filed from 2011 to 2017. Five global banks, JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon, kept serving suspect clients after earlier US penalties. A report is not necessarily evidence of a crime, ICIJ notes.
11. TD Bank: 92 percent of transactions unmonitored
TD Bank, the 10th largest US bank, ran its AML program under a budget rule known internally as the "flat cost paradigm". It added no new monitoring scenarios from 2014 to late 2022 and did not automatically monitor domestic ACH transfers or most checks, so 92 percent of its volume, about $18.3 trillion, went unmonitored from January 2018 to April 2024. Three laundering networks moved more than $670 million through it from 2019 to 2023, one helped by five employees.
On 10 October 2024 TD Bank pleaded guilty and agreed to pay the Justice Department over $1.8 billion, including a $1.43 billion fine. The department called it the largest penalty ever imposed under the Bank Secrecy Act. FinCEN assessed $1.3 billion more, its largest penalty against a depository institution.
12. Prince Group: 127,271 bitcoin and the largest US forfeiture action
On 14 October 2025 Treasury sanctioned 146 targets in the Prince Group network, which it called a transnational criminal organization "led by Cambodian national Chen Zhi". The same day prosecutors charged Chen Zhi with wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy over forced labor compounds running cryptocurrency investment frauds, and filed a civil forfeiture complaint against about 127,271 bitcoin, worth about $15 billion, "the largest forfeiture action in the history of the Department of Justice". The charges are allegations.
On 23 June 2026 Treasury sanctioned 35 more targets and said Chen Zhi had been stripped of his titles and Cambodian citizenship in January.
13. Huione Group: cut off from the US financial system
Treasury says Huione Group, a Cambodian financial services conglomerate, laundered at least $4 billion of illicit proceeds between August 2021 and January 2025, including money from North Korean cyber heists and cryptocurrency investment scams. FinCEN's section 311 final rule, published on 16 October 2025 and in force from 17 November 2025, bars US financial institutions from holding correspondent accounts for it. On 23 June 2026 the Justice Department seized a cloud account that ran backend systems for Huione Guarantee, an alleged criminal marketplace, and FinCEN proposed extending the rule to a payments company in the group.
14. Qian Zhimin and the 61,000 bitcoin
From 2014 to 2017, Qian Zhimin ran an investment fraud in China. By the time it was exposed in 2017, over 128,000 investors had put in the equivalent of about £4.6 billion. She turned investor money into bitcoin, fled to the UK in 2017 under a false identity and tried to launder the proceeds by buying property. The Metropolitan Police seized 61,000 bitcoin, which it believes is the single largest cryptocurrency seizure in the world. Qian pleaded guilty on 29 September 2025, and Southwark Crown Court sentenced her to 11 years and 8 months on 11 November 2025. The recovered cryptocurrency was worth over £1.5 billion.
15. Singapore's S$3 billion case
On 15 August 2023, more than 400 police officers raided homes and arrested ten foreign nationals suspected of laundering the proceeds of overseas scams and gambling. The police said the group was found partly through analysis of suspicious transaction reports. By 19 January 2024, assets seized or frozen under prohibition orders had passed S$3 billion.
All ten were convicted and jailed for 13 to 17 months, and about S$944 million of their assets went to the state. Seventeen more foreign nationals linked to the probe had left Singapore; by 18 November 2024, 15 of them had agreed to surrender about S$1.85 billion.
Summary table: the 15 biggest money laundering cases
Table 1. The 15 biggest money laundering cases in history. Sources: the court and regulator records linked in each entry, checked 24 October 2026. "Fine / Amount" gives the scheme figure first, then the outcome; read the scheme figure with the measure it names.
| Institution | Year | Fine / Amount | Jurisdiction | Key failure | Lesson |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Danske Bank (Estonian branch) | 2007 to 2015 | about EUR 200 billion of flow; $2.059 billion US forfeiture | Denmark, Estonia, US | non resident portfolio on its own IT platform, outside group monitoring | cross border branches need group level monitoring |
| HSBC and HSBC Mexico | 2006 to 2010 | at least $881 million of drug money; $1.256 billion forfeiture | US, Mexico | Mexico rated "standard"; over $670 billion of wires unmonitored | risk rate customers and countries on evidence |
| 1MDB and Goldman Sachs | 2009 to 2014 | over $2.7 billion misappropriated; Goldman paid over $2.9 billion | Malaysia, US, global | red flags about Jho Low ignored or only nominally addressed | know who stands behind a deal, not only the client |
| Wachovia Bank | 2004 to 2007 | over $420 billion unmonitored; $160 million forfeiture and fine | US, Mexico | casas de cambio wires, bulk cash and checks not monitored | correspondent clients need their own monitoring |
| Nauru | 2000 to 2008 | 400 offshore bank licenses (FinCEN, 2000) | Pacific | shell banks with no credible supervision | a whole jurisdiction can license shell banks |
| Liberty Reserve | 2006 to 2013 | over $6 billion alleged; founder jailed for 20 years | Costa Rica, US | digital currency designed for anonymous transactions | anonymity by design is a money laundering red flag |
| Troika Laundromat | 2006 to 2013 | $4.6 billion in, $4.8 billion out | Russia, Lithuania, global | at least 75 offshore companies, fake trade invoices signed by proxies | layered offshore structures evade correspondent banking controls |
| Deutsche Bank | 2012 to 2014 | about $10 billion out of Russia; £163 million and $425 million | Russia, UK, US | mirror trades in the trading book went undetected | pattern based transaction monitoring must cover trades |
| Credit Suisse | 2013 to 2017 | over $200 million in bribes and kickbacks; $547 million assessed | Mozambique, UK, US | bribery red flags on the contractor; financial crime risk not prioritized (FCA) | bribery risk in a deal needs its own review |
| FinCEN Files | 1999 to 2017 | over $2 trillion flagged in over 2,100 SARs | global | SARs filed while the money kept moving | a SAR with no follow up leaves the client in place |
| TD Bank | 2018 to 2024 | $18.3 trillion unmonitored; over $1.8 billion to DOJ, $1.3 billion to FinCEN | US | frozen AML budget, 92% of transactions unmonitored | underfunding compliance is no defense |
| Prince Group | 2015 to 2025 (alleged) | 127,271 bitcoin, about $15 billion, in a forfeiture action | Cambodia, US, UK | scam proceeds moved through gambling and mining businesses (alleged) | screen counterparties against new designations |
| Huione Group | 2021 to 2025 | at least $4 billion laundered (Treasury) | Cambodia, US | payment and marketplace services for scam networks | a section 311 rule can cut off a whole group |
| Qian Zhimin | 2014 to 2025 | 61,000 bitcoin; over £1.5 billion recovered | China, UK | fraud proceeds held in bitcoin, then used to try to buy property | check the source of wealth behind crypto rich buyers |
| Singapore S$3 billion case | 2023 to 2024 | over S$3 billion seized or frozen | Singapore | forged documents used to explain the source of funds in bank accounts | suspicious transaction reports can surface a network |
How these cases were chosen
A case needs laundering on the record, not only a penalty for control failures, so Starling Bank and OKX are left out: Starling's £28,959,426 FCA fine of 2 October 2024 over sanctions screening, and OKX's guilty plea of 24 February 2025 to unlicensed money transmission, with more than $504 million in penalties.
The health care fraud takedown of 23 June 2026, with 455 defendants and over $6.5 billion in alleged false claims, is a fraud enforcement round, covered under healthcare fraud.
The order is the earlier edition's, with four added cases at the end, not a ranking by one figure. Each example says what its headline figure measures, such as total flow, unmonitored volume, or a proven or alleged laundered sum.
Every amount, date, plea, sentence and forfeiture was checked on 24 October 2026 against the record linked in its entry. Most are Justice Department, Treasury, FinCEN, FCA, DFS, court and police records; the Troika and FinCEN Files entries rest on OCCRP's and ICIJ's reporting on leaked records. Every incident is dated, and untried charges are marked as allegations.
This page first went up on 13 January 2021 and was rebuilt in October 2026 on primary records, replacing news and blog figures.
Minhac Celik, Marketing Advisor to complead, who has worked as a compliance analyst and researcher, wrote this page. Ufuk Gürdaş, Compliance Specialist (MASAK certified compliance officer; ICA Certificate in Compliance; MBA in Auditing; 10+ years in banking and fintech compliance), is its compliance reviewer; he writes on money laundering typologies and AML regulation.
Last reviewed: 24 October 2026.
What are the key lessons from major money laundering scandals?
Almost every case here failed at one of five stages: knowing who owns a customer, rating the risk, monitoring every channel, reading trades and correspondent flows, and acting on suspicious activity reports.
Table 2. Where the controls failed. Sources: the case records above.
| Stage | Case | Signal missed | Who decides |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onboarding and beneficial owner | 1MDB, Troika Laundromat, Danske Bank | the person behind a deal or a shell company | the onboarding analyst, and the MLRO who approves the customer |
| Risk rating | HSBC (Mexico rated "standard"), Deutsche Bank (Russia rated high only in late 2014) | country and customer risk evidence | compliance, within the board's risk appetite |
| Monitoring coverage | TD Bank, Wachovia Bank | channels and products outside any scenario | the AML program owner who signs off scenarios |
| Trading and correspondent flows | Deutsche Bank, Danske Bank | matched trades, non resident dollar flows | the compliance officer for that business line |
| SAR filing and follow through | FinCEN Files, TD Bank | repeat reports on the same client | the MLRO or BSA officer, who can exit the client |
Hidden owners come first. Danske's Estonian staff helped customers use shell companies that obscured who owned the funds, prosecutors said, and Troika's offshore companies ran on proxy directors. In 1MDB the problem was the man behind the deal: Goldman admitted that its control functions knew any deal involving Jho Low carried significant risk, yet did not keep him out. Verifying the ultimate beneficial owner of a company customer is the control aimed at that gap.
A risk rating decides how closely everything after onboarding is watched. New York's DFS found that Deutsche Bank rated Russia high risk only in late 2014, well after peer banks did. A rating that starts from public evidence, such as corruption scores by country, is harder to set too low.
Danske's Estonian branch screened customers and payments mainly by hand, its own report says, and TD Bank left whole channels outside automated monitoring.
Filing a report does not end the job. Danske's Estonian branch had filed reports on 653 customers in the non resident portfolio before the 2018 investigation. The officer who files needs the authority, and the data, to exit a client after repeated reports.
How could AML technology have prevented these scandals?
No software overrules a budget rule like TD Bank's. Five checks, though, go at the gaps these records describe.
- Review scenarios when the business changes. TD Bank launched products such as Zelle without monitoring coverage for them.
- Monitor every channel. Wachovia took about $47 billion through remote check deposits from exchange houses it did not monitor.
- Put the trading book into monitoring. Deutsche Bank's mirror trades matched on both sides, a pattern a rule can find.
- Act on what a report says. The FinCEN Files show banks reporting clients as suspicious and still moving their money.
- Know who owns a customer and who stands behind a deal. Goldman did not keep Jho Low out of the 1MDB deals.
In complead, transaction monitoring shows which rule fired and which signals matched on every alert, and a new scenario can be backtested on the firm's own history before it goes live. The reviewer decides and the record shows who did. As designations like the Prince Group sanctions arrive, screening runs sanctions, PEP and watchlist checks at onboarding, then rescreens customers as the lists change, with one explainable risk score.
Most of these banks also paid penalties, which rank differently from the schemes. Which of these banks paid the largest penalty, and to which authority?
