04 August 2026 , 08:54
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The U.S. Treasury’s financial watchdog fined a record $125 million penalty Monday against UBS Financial Services Inc. for "willful" anti-money laundering violations, including failing to monitor over $10 billion in foreign currency wires and ignoring red flags on high-risk clients.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said in a statement that UBS failed to conduct proper due diligence on customers tied to Russia and Latin America, missing warning signs of corruption and money laundering even when an internal affiliate raised concerns.
The penalty is the largest ever imposed on a U.S. broker-dealer and marks FinCEN’s second enforcement action against the firm since 2018 for similar monitoring weaknesses. As part of the latest resolution, UBS admitted to the violations and agreed to hire an independent reviewer to evaluate its compliance program, with a specific focus on illicit finance risks involving cartels, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.
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