American Express Bank International ordered to pay $65M in fines
American Express Bank International must forfeit $55 million to the government and pay more in penalties to resolve criminal charges of failing to prevent money laundering.

Millions of dollars of drug money were allowed to flow freely through Miami-based American Express Bank International, federal prosecutors said Monday as they ordered the bank to forfeit $55 million and pay another $10 million in penalties.

The bank ''willfully'' failed to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, prosecutors said.

Under a so-called deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, the bank will not actually be indicted criminally unless it fails to strengthen its safeguards against money laundering.

The Brickell Avenue bank will forfeit $55 million to the department, pay an additional $10 million in penalties and accept responsibility for its lax enforcement in events that took place from 2002 to April 2004.

''We have cooperated fully with the government and understand the need for absolute vigilance in our efforts to protect against money laundering,'' said American Express spokeswoman Susan J. Atran. ``We are firmly committed to the agreements we have reached and to conducting our business with the highest standards of integrity, compliance and control.''

The forfeiture is the largest single monetary penalty against a U.S.-based bank, said Charles I. Intriago, publisher of the Miami-based Money Laundering Alert, and harks back to the Miami Vice era in which drug money poured through local banks.

''I don't think we are back to those days, but the facts here give you a déjà vu feeling,'' Intriago said.

American Express Bank International, which has $1 billion in assets, handles the accounts of many wealthy Latin American clients.

According to court documents, the case centers on bank accounts investigators believe were used to launder more than $55 million in drug proceeds through the ``Black Market Peso Exchange.''

Under this scheme, Colombian importers would pay money brokers with pesos for dollars held by drug cartels in the United States or elsewhere -- laundered through U.S. bank accounts -- and then use the dollars for their goods, according to the statement of fact.