a major admission from TD Bank criminals used its branches for illegal activity and the bank failed to stop them there were serious instances where the bank did not effectively monitor detect report and respond to suspicious activity this is unacceptable the bank is one of several institutions under investigation by the US Department of Justice and three different Financial Regulators court documents allege a former TD B teller accepted bribes to launder money for drug traffickers they're going to have to look at their anti-corruption systems because obviously there was a gaping hole there if this could happen TD says it's cooperating with us officials and has terminated the employees responsible analysts suggest total fines could end up costing the bank $2 billion the fines in the US are meant to punish and to be large enough to to hurt your reputation at your bottom line TD's troubles have also sha a spotlight on moneya laundering in Canada estimated at more than100 billion every year experts say regulations here are less robust how we've designed our institutions is simply not a match for the type of professionalism and the amounts of money that are flowing in and through Canada in a separate case TD was fined $9 million by Canada's Financial crime crime Watchdog for failing to report suspicious transactions RBC and CIBC also paid penalties for lack oversight when we limit enforcement to fines alone it's really easy for a person or a business that puts profits first to just compare the size of the fine to the potential profits and pick whichever one's bigger the federal government has pledged to establish a new fin cial crimes agency but it's not clear yet when that will happen Nisha Patel CBC News Toronto