United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has suspended the United Bank for Africa, UBA from all wire transfers. The suspension took effect from March 2008, according to Pointblanknews.

The civil penalty was levied against the bank's New York branch because it violated a cease-and-desist order earlier issued in 2007 and failed to identify and report about $197 million in suspicious transactions, some of which were traced to Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs). There are strong indications that some of the monies were meant for the African Finance Corporation, AFC.

OCC investigators found that the AFC maintains two accounts with the UBA New York branch and had transferred over $300 million through the UBA New York branch in November 2007 and March 2008. The UBA declined to report the transactions as suspicious, claiming that the AFC accounts were legitimate, a fact that has been denied by the Federal Government which already requested help from US authorities to trace the movement of the AFC funds.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo had signed the AFC charter a day before the end of his administration as a private sector-led investment development finance institution created to help mobilize and channel required capital towards the economic development of the region. CBN invested about $480 Million, UBA invested $101 million, First Bank ($100 million), Zenith Bank ($50 million), Union Bank ($50 million), Intercontinental Bank ($50 million), Oceanic Bank ($50 million), and Access Bank ($50 million) while two unnamed Chinese firms invested $50 million.

Some of the funds invested in the AFC were suspected to have been moved to the UBA New York branch illegally, attracting the curious attention of U.S investigators who slammed a fine of $15 million single payment on the bank for the violation of the Bank Secrecy Acts, BSA.

In a document obtained by Pointblanknews.com, the U.S agency said that as a result of its findings, the OCC issued a second “Cease and Desist Order” by consent to UBA on February 29, 2008. The latest C&D requires that the bank to among other things “cease and desist from processing wire transfers, dollar drafts, and pouch transactions 45 days after receipt of the latest C&DO, pending the time UBA can be cleared.

According to the document, “during an OCC targeted examination conducted in November 2007 to determine compliance with the 2007 OCC C&D order, OCC examiners determined that the Bank had failed to comply with the order’s term and that the significant BSA program deficiencies remained pervasive and systematic, including internal control and audit deficiencies, as well as the Branch’s continued failure to identify and report suspicious activities.”

The OCC noted that the latest sanctions on the UBA branch is as a result of the Bank’s failure to comply with OCC’s 2007 Cease and Desist order and failure to correct the Bank Secrecy Act, BSA, Program deficiencies.

The order also warned the UBA to desist from misrepresenting the facts of the case to the public, a clause that has already been breached by the UBA as it tried to portray the latest crisis as an event that happened before its current mergers and acquisitions. The OCC and FinCEN maintain that the $15 million fines were contingent upon inadequacies found in UBA’s banking practices between January 2007 and February 2008.