A former TD Bank employee in Florida has been charged with allegedly facilitating a money-laundering scheme that involved moving millions of dollars related to the sale of narcotics.
Leonardo Ayala, who worked at a TD branch in Doral, Florida, was charged Tuesday with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Ayala, who appeared in federal court in Miami, faces up to 20 years in prison if he is convicted.
The 24-year-old is accused of receiving bribes for allegedly issuing debit cards for bank accounts that had been opened by another TD employee in the names of shell companies. The accounts were then allegedly used to launder drug money via cash withdrawals from ATMs in Colombia.
The charge is the latest development in TD Bank Group's money-laundering saga. In October, the Toronto-based company's U.S. arm
The company has said it will
Ayala is the third ex-TD employee to be charged in connection with the money-laundering conspiracy. The DOJ has previously said that it identified at least three schemes to move more than $670 million in dirty money between 2019 and 2023. It has charged two dozen people in connection with those crimes, including two other bank employees.
Ayala worked at the TD branch in Florida for nine months, starting in February 2023, according to a court document filed by prosecutors. In June of last year, a TD employee in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, opened a bank account for a company in New Jersey and listed a Venezuelan citizen as the "individual with control" of the account, even though the employee knew that person would not control the account, the court document said.
The Toronto-based bank suspended its medium-term growth targets and announced a full-scale review of its strategies following historic anti-money-laundering failures.
About two weeks later, Ayala received an email from a third party at his TD email address requesting that he issue debit cards for the account.
The third party, who was not the account holder or the "individual with control," gave Ayala about 25 names and corresponding birth dates in order to issue the debit cards, the court document said. While working at the Doral branch's drive-through window, Ayala allegedly spent the next hour creating 25 debit cards and requested that they be mailed to an address in Plainfield, New Jersey. All of the cards were subsequently activated, according to the court document.
Over a two-month period, the debit cards were used to move more than $500,000 from the U.S. to Colombia via ATM withdrawals, the court document said.
Ayala also allegedly issued debit cards for a second account, which had also been set up by the Scotch Plains employee in June 2023 to launder money related to illegal narcotics, according to the court document. Ayala is accused of accessing that account, which showed more than $550,000 in ATM withdrawals to Colombia, and issuing at least 41 debit cards for the account over several weeks. According to the court document, more than $800,000 was moved through that account between the U.S. and Colombia over a five-month period.
In exchange for his services, Ayala received payments from a second Venezuelan national totaling about $2,650, the court document said. Law-enforcement officials interviewed Ayala on Nov. 20, 2023, at which time he explained what money laundering is and said he exchanged text messages with the second Venezuelan national, but that he had never been paid "for influence over an act or decision at TD Bank," the court document said.
Following his initial appearance in Miami, all of Ayala's future court appearances will take place in New Jersey, the DOJ said.
