Commonwealth Bank failed to tell authorities about suspicious transactions being made by a convicted terrorist within the required timeframe, despite the bank's staff believing the man was allegedly raising funds to support terrorism, a financial regulator claims.
It is also alleged that a NSW drug and firearm syndicate used "money mules" to launder large sums of cash through the bank, with almost $5.5 million deposited into CBA accounts linked to the syndicate.
These are some of the 100 new allegations made by Austrac, the financial intelligence regulator, which significantly expanded its case against CBA on Thursday.
Some of the new alleged breaches even occurred after Austrac launched its explosive case against CBA, which alleges the bank failed to properly monitor or report thousands of supicious transations made through its ATMs.
Among the raft of new allegations, Austrac is claiming CBA failed to report two suspicious matters relating to terror financing within 24 hours, as it is required to do.
Austrac said that between June and August this year, a CBA customer dubbed "person 138" who had been convicted of terrorism offences tried three times to transfer $5000 to an account in Lebanon.
Before these attempts, several thousand dollars in cash had been deposited into his accounts in Bankstown, Sydney, using a bank card issued to his brother.
The cash did not make it to Lebanon, and Austrac said "the customer was identified as allegedly raising funds in Australia to support terrorism and had been convicted in 2005 for terrorism related activities".
But although the money transfers were blocked, CBA did not report its suspicions of terrorism financing to Austrac within the 24-hour deadline.
"Even though on 23 June 2017, two analysts within the Financial Services Crime Group had failed the requested international money transfer on the basis that the customer was an alleged terrorist fundraiser with a terrorism-related conviction, the STR [suspect transaction report] was not reviewed by the AML [anti-money laundering] Team until 26 June 2017."
In another suspicious transaction involving the same man, it is alleged that CBA should have told Austrac about its concerns by July 21, but it did not do so until August 4 - almost two weeks later.
CBA responded on Thursday by saying it would review the amended statement of claim from Austrac. The bank said it took its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing obligations extremely seriously and it deeply regretted any failure to comply with these laws.
Drugs, firearms money laundered
Austrac also alleged CBA bank accounts were used to launder cash from a NSW drug and firearms syndicate, with CBA failing to properly report its suspicions to authorities.
The statement of claim said "person 81" directed "money mules" to meet with organised crime figures, with one crime group using this person to launder $42 million.
Austrac said almost $5.5 million in large or "structured" cash deposits were made to CBA bank accounts, but claimed the bank failed to comply with its reporting obligations.
For example, it said the Organised Crime Squad of the NSW Police sought information from CBA about one of the "mules" in April this year. CBA provided this to the police, but did not file a report as needed with Austrac, the regulator said.
In another instance, CBA did not properly monitor a customer involved in suspicious transactions since 2013, and only lodged a suspicious matter report with Austrac this September, it is alleged.
The statement also reveals CBA was caught up in a Western Australian police investigation into money laundering through "intelligent" ATMs, which are capable of counting large amounts of cash.
A member of a Vietnamese crime syndicate was able to make 86 cash deposits totalling $650,250 between March and late May this year, which the bank considered were "highly suspicious", the claim said. Yet CBA was too slow in passing on its concerns to the regulator, Austrac said.
CBA on Wednesday night filed its defence in response to Austrac's initial allegations that were lodged in August. It admitted it had been late in filing 53,000 notifications of cash deposits of more than $10,000 made through its ATMs between 2012 and 2015. The bank admitted to some other types of breaches while signalling it would challenge more than 100 other allegations brought by Austrac.
