Citigroup says U.S. probing anti-money laundering controls

REUTERS - A federal grand jury is probing Citigroup Inc, including its Banamex USA affiliate, over compliance with the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering requirements, the company said.

In an annual filing on Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said the probe includes subpoenas from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.

The company also said Banamex USA had received a subpoena from the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. While the U.S. attorney may bring criminal charges, the FDIC is a civil agency.

The criminal probe follows other problems that have surfaced with Banamex, which operates Citigroup's largest single consumer bank outside of the U.S. and has been portrayed by the company as a model of its global strategy.

 

Citigroup disclosed on Friday that it had discovered at least $400 million in fraudulent loans in its Banamex subsidiary in Mexico and said employees might have been involved in the apparent crime.

In the third quarter of 2013 problems with about $300 million of loans that Banamex had made to three Mexican homebuilders prompted Citigroup to book reserves for expected losses.

Citigroup is the third-largest U.S. bank by assets. The company views its international business as a competitive advantage over other big banks in the United States.

(Reporting by David Henry and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Sofina Mirza-Reid)