Japanese Bank to Pay New York $250 Million over Money-Laundering

Transactions were used to get around sanctions against certain countries

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York regulators say the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi-UFJ Ltd. will pay $250 million to the state for laundering billions of dollars in transactions that violated economic sanctions against countries including Iran, Sudan, and Myanmar.

The state's Department of Financial Services says Thursday the bank agreed to the fine and a year of special monitoring for handling 28,000 U.S. dollar transactions totaling about $100 billion between 2002 and 2007.

It says BTMU employees routinely removed information from wire transfer messages that could have identified the government and business entities involved as targets of sanctions.