“I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.” – Al Capone.
In the movies, criminals empty Brink’s trucks. In real life, they load them.
You can’t trust just any ol’ money mule when you’re peddling drugs, running guns, trafficking humans, or funding a local terrorist cell. Why not call a long-established cash-handling company that everybody trusts?
On Thursday, Brink’s became history’s first armored-car company to admit to criminal wrongdoing and cough up a hefty settlement to avoid prosecution.
One of its subsidiaries agreed to pay $42 million to settle criminal allegations from the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
“For years, Brink’s moved large sums domestically and across the Southwest border without required … controls, exposing the U.S. financial system to a heightened risk of money laundering, including from narcotics trafficking and other illicit activity,” FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki said in a press release.
The settlement agreement enumerates millions in suspicious shipments between San Diego, Miami and Tijuana.
Organized crime relies on a loose financial system to move money. The world’s largest financial institutions often face sanctions for turning a blind eye and deploying shoddy money-laundering controls.
Last month, Bank of America received a cease-and-desist order from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for its unsafe anti-money laundering practices.
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