A former New York-based employee of TD Bank N.A, Wilfredo Aquino, pleaded guilty today to facilitating a money laundering network’s movement of hundreds of millions of dollars through TD Bank accounts.Aquino, 47, of New York, pleaded guilty to a one-count information charging him with conspiring to launder monetary instruments. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 12.
According to a DOJ press release, beginning in 2019 and continuing until February 2021, Aquino, then a TD Bank assistant store manager, leveraged his position to facilitate a money laundering network’s movement of hundreds of millions of dollars through TD Bank accounts. During that time, the leader of the network, Da Ying Sze, also known as David, and his co-conspirators (collectively known as David’s Network) moved approximately $474 million through TD Bank accounts by depositing cash at TD Bank stores in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere. In February 2022, David pleaded guilty to coordinating a $653 million money laundering conspiracy, operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, and bribing bank employees in connection with financial transactions.
While David’s Network used a number of TD Bank stores to conduct its money laundering activity, it laundered the most money through Aquino’s Midtown Manhattan store. Nobody processed more transactions for David’s Network at the Midtown Manhattan store than Aquino. During the course of David’s money laundering scheme, Aquino processed approximately 1,680 official bank checks for David’s Network, totaling more than approximately $92 million. Nearly all of these bank checks were funded with a corresponding cash deposit exceeding $10,000, which triggered TD Bank’s legal requirement to file a currency transaction report (CTR). Although Aquino knew that David was conducting these cash deposits, Aquino never identified David as the “conductor” on the CTR. Aquino also knew that TD Bank had closed other accounts linked to David for suspicious activity; one colleague even warned Aquino that David’s activity “looks like money laundering.” In February 2021, Aquino facilitated three of David’s money laundering transactions, totaling almost $2 million in cash, in a third party’s account. He failed to report David as the conductor of the transaction, thus concealing David’s role in the money laundering scheme.
According to the release, Aquino accepted numerous retail gift cards from David totaling over $11,000 in return for his facilitation of this scheme, including for the three transactions in February 2021.
Jeffrey Newman is a whistleblower lawyer whose law firm represents whistleblowers revealing violations of export controls, tariff evasions, money laundering, healthcare fraud and other kinds of WB cases. The firm represents individuals both in the United States and other countries. Mr. Newman and his firm staff also represent physicians and other healthcare providers who become whistleblowers in healthcare fraud cases. Whistleblower laws in the U.S. allow individuals anywhere with information about export control violations or tariff fraud to reveal the information under The False Claims act or through the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Whistleblower Program. The Firm’s website is at www.JeffNewmanLaw.com and attorney Newman can be reached at Jeff@Jeffnewmanlaw.com or at 978-880-4758
