By Anthony Harrup
MEXICO CITY--An American regulator has fined a U.S. unit of
Mexico's Grupo Financiero Banorte SAB $475,000 for alleged failures
in its anti-money-laundering procedures, which it said allowed
suspicious transactions to go unreported.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said on Tuesday that
it levied the fine against Banorte-Ixe Securities International,
Ltd., a New York-based securities firm that services Mexican
clients investing in U.S. and global securities.
"Banorte Securities opened an account for a corporate customer
owned by an individual with reported ties to a drug cartel and did
not detect, investigate or report the suspicious rapid movement of
$28 million in and out of the account," Finra said. It didn't
identify the customer.
Finra said Banorte Securities failed to investigate a number of
suspicious activities, including multimillion-dollar deposits and
withdrawals in a short period of time.
Other faults included not adopting anti-money-laundering
procedures adequately and failure to register between 200 and 400
foreign finders, or people who refer clients to U.S. brokerages,
who had interacted with the firm's Mexican clients, Finra said.
Finra said Banorte Securities and the firm's former
anti-money-laundering and chief compliance officer "neither
admitted nor denied the charges but consented to the entry of
Finra's findings."
In a filing with the Mexican stock exchange, Banorte said the
unit will pay the fine in full and added it has taken corrective
measures to comply with regulatory requirements.
"The management of Grupo Financiero Banorte is permanently
committed to complying with applicable regulations in all the
jurisdictions where its units operate," Banorte said. It added that
U.S. authorities "have increasingly questioned the business of
Latin American institutions."
Write to Anthony Harrup at anthony.harrup@wsj.com
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