This development should come as no surprise as the fox was let into the henhouse years ago when TD Bank’s U.S. operations failed to monitor millions of suspicious transactions over several years. It resulted in the US Department of Justice in 2024 levying a $3 billion fine against the major Canadian bank and putting in place operational banking restrictions going forward.
As a previous blog post alluded to in an excellent article written by Stefanie Marotta of the Globe and Mail with respect to this major transgression by TD Bank in the U.S.,
TD is the first bank in the U.S. to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. It is also the largest bank in U.S. history to plead guilty to failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering (AML) program that complies with federal regulations.
She went on to say,
“By making its services convenient for criminals, TD Bank became one,” U.S.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said Thursday. Alex Lupul/The Canadian Press
TD allowed three money-laundering networks to shuffle more than US$670-million through bank accounts, and at least one of those schemes involved five of the lender’s employees. The Justice Department has also prosecuted two dozen individuals that were involved in money laundering, and has charged two TD employees for their involvement in one of these schemes.
But the scope of the employees who knew about and had flagged the anti-money laundering failures was much wider, according to internal messages that suggest the problems at the bank were well-known to employees.
“You guys really need to shut this down LOL,” a TD branch manager in the U.S. e-mailed another manager in August 2020. The employee was referring to Da Ying Sze, known as David, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in cash – much of which was moved through TD accounts.
The article below from Banking Dive confirms one of the TD Bank insiders is being
charged and may serve up to 30 years in prison. Will it send a strong message to not only insiders taking advantage of clients in financial institutions within the US but in
Canada where TD Bank is headquartered and enforcement and punishment is lagging well behind other countries including the US?
As for the last quote stated in the article about banks being your first line of defense, it means nothing and is little consolation if you have been scammed and not protected as a consumer should expect who is entrusting all their money with a financial institution.
Ex-TD employee pleads guilty in bank fraud
A former employee at a TD branch in New York facilitated about $3.4 million in fraud by stealing from customers and bribing an employee at another bank, the Justice Department said.
Published May 29, 2026
Caitlin Mullen
Senior Editor
A sign is posted outside a TD bank in Brooklyn on June 4, 2024 in New York City. Spencer Platt / Staff via Getty Images
Dive Brief:
- Former TD Bank employee Cheungkin Lam, also known as Kelvin Lam, pleaded guilty Thursday to defrauding the lender’s customers and bribing an employee at another bank to falsify bank records, the Justice Department said Thursday.
- Lam, a financial service representative at a TD branch in Fresh Meadows, New York, facilitated about $3.4 million in fraud, according to documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
- “Lam abused his position as a bank employee to help fraudsters steal money from unwitting customers and bribed another bank employee to do the same,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva, of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in a Thursday release.
Dive Insight:
Between January and May 2021, Lam, 28, accepted bribes and used his position at TD to identify large-balance bank accounts and steal customer information, the DOJ said.
He made unauthorized inquiries into customers’ bank accounts and emailed his TD supervisors and managers seeking monthly “large balance reports,” according to court documents.
Lam shared the information he gathered on numerous TD customers with his co-conspirators, who used it to withdraw funds from those customer accounts. About $417,300 was taken from one customer’s bank account; TD incurred the loss by reimbursing the customer, prosecutors said.
Lam and his co-conspirators attempted to steal about $6.5 million in all from TD customers’ accounts, according to court documents.
Additionally, from May to August 2022, Lam bribed a co-conspirator who worked at another bank to falsify records in opening a bank account to be used in various fraud schemes by Lam’s co-conspirators.
Lam received at least $155,000 in bribes, prosecutors said.
Lam pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution and making false bank entries or reports, the DOJ said. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 15, and he faces up to 30 years in prison.
“Bank employees are the first line of defense against money laundering, fraud, and other financial crimes,” Duva said in the release. “When bank employees violate the public trust by using their positions to enrich themselves through financial crime, the Criminal Division will investigate and prosecute them.”
A spokesperson for TD didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
