Bank Associated with Scott Tucker Ordered to Pay $613 Million for Lack of Money Laundering Controls

A coalition of prosecutors and federal bank regulators issued a fine of $613 million to U.S. Bank late last week in connection with violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. The bank got in hot water with regulators in part for a failure to monitor for money laundering activities associated with Scott Tucker’s former fraudulent payday lending scheme.

According to the settlement, U.S. Bank limited its suspicious activity monitoring and stopped internal testing for fraudulent activities when more concerns began to appear. The bank altered meeting documents to hide references to the need for more monitoring when requested by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The bank ultimately held $176 million for Tucker’s illegal operations.

Last month Scott Tucker was sentenced to more than 16 years in federal prison for operating a multi-billion dollar payday lending empire by exploiting the sovereign status of 3 different tribes to shield his unlawful business practices from state and federal regulatory scrutiny.