“By making its services convenient for criminals, [T.D.] Bank became one,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said this October. According to CNBC, T.D. Bank “became the largest bank in U.S. history to plead guilty to Bank Secrecy Act program failures,” and the first to plead guilty to money laundering conspiracy.
The bank allowed money laundering networks to transfer $670 million, most moved by just one individual. The Justice Department is investigating laundering related to fentanyl, which killed more Black Americans than any other drug in 2021.
Yet, there’s a common misconception that white-collar crime is victimless. Money laundering, political corruption, Ponzi schemes, scam calls and emails, and corporate and credit card fraud have victims - not banks but us. Some white-collar crime even leads to murder.
But a system that criminalizes poverty and rewards defendants who can afford expensive lawyers incarcerates working-class Black people for much less. Unprosecuted white-collar crimes cost the U.S. up to $800 billion a year, compared to street-level property crime at $16 billion. Black women don’t hold most of this country’s wealth, but are more likely to be convicted of a financial crime than any other federal crime.
This news is just another opportunity to question what being “criminal” in this country really means and how often we get hurt when the criminal legal system follows the money.