Bank of America stock drops 9% after admitting money laundering control failures and agreeing to $1.21 billion fine

Bank of America stock fell as much as 9% on Wednesday after the bank admitted willful money laundering control failures and agreed to pay $1.21 billion. The Treasury stated the bank failed to report over $5 billion in suspicious transactions, including over $1 billion involving national security risks like suspected Chinese money laundering networks, often relying on law enforcement inquiries instead of internal monitoring. Changpeng Zhao (CZ) highlighted this as a double standard, noting he served four months in US prison for Binance's AML failures, while no Bank of America executives were charged; the penalties were civil fines from three Treasury agencies, not criminal charges from the Justice Department.