On May 20, 2022, the SEC announced charges against Wells Fargo Advisors for failing to file at least 34 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) in a timely manner between April 2017 and October 2021. Wells Fargo Advisors, the St. Louis-based broker-dealer, has agreed to pay $7 million to settle the charges.
The SEC’s order was a result of Wells Fargo Advisors’ deficient implementation and failure to test a new version of its internal anti-money laundering (AML) transaction monitoring and alert system adopted in January 2019, where the system failed to reconcile the different country codes used to monitor foreign wire transfers. This led to Wells Fargo Advisors’ failure to timely file at least 25 SARs related to suspicious transactions in its customers’ brokerage accounts involving wire transfers to or from foreign countries that it determined to be at a high or moderate risk for money laundering, terrorist financing, or other illegal money movements.
The SEC found that Wells Fargo Advisors violated Section 17(a) of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 17a-8. In addition to the $7 million penalty, Wells Fargo Advisors, without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, agreed to a censure and a cease and desist order.
Read the SEC’s press release here.
