Peter Schiff Compares American Express Fine to His Bank Closure
U.S. regulators fined American Express $350 million for serious deficiencies in its anti-money laundering program, failing to timely detect and report approximately $13 billion in suspicious activities over more than a decade.
The OCC found that the bank had systemic deficiencies in resources, personnel expertise, internal controls, independent testing, and training, with risk assessments overly focused on deposit products and insufficient attention to credit card and charge card operations, leading to ineffective monitoring of trade-related money laundering activities, some involving internal personnel accounts.
American Express neither admitted nor denied the findings, stating that the fine and remediation costs would not affect its previously issued financial guidance, and that the regulatory order did not impose an asset cap.
Peter Schiff pointed out that American Express was not shut down, and regulators did not hold a press conference to announce the investigation results.
Schiff stated that his Euro Pacific Bank had undergone a multi-national criminal investigation led by the IRS and local regulatory audits, but no instances of failing to report suspicious activities were found. However, it was closed by the OCIF under some pretext, and a press conference was held with the IRS-CI head to present the failed J5 Atlantis investigation as a success.
Large banks continue to operate after being fined for compliance deficiencies, with no fundamental disruption to the flow of funds and business; small banks, however, are closed despite investigations finding no specific violations, leading to different paths in regulatory actions and public narratives.
Source: Public Information
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Peter Schiff has long operated Euro Pacific Bank, which was closed by Puerto Rico's OCIF in 2022, during the J5 multi-national tax enforcement cooperation Atlantis operation. He obtained internal emails through FOIA and filed a lawsuit, claiming the closure lacked substantive evidence of violations and involved coordination.
In terms of capital pathways, large institutions like American Express maintain business continuity after paying a $350 million fine, while small banks face forced closure and liquidation after investigations find no specific violations, leading to different handling of customer funds and shareholder equity.
This is similar to historical BSA/AML fines against large banks (like TD Bank), currently in a phase where regulators focus on fines and remediation for systemically important institutions while taking more aggressive closure measures against smaller institutions.
Essentially, this reflects regulatory changes and capital concentration: the handling of compliance failures diverges based on institution size and systemic importance, with large payment institutions absorbing costs through fines and continuing operations, while small banks face existential disruption. The mechanism lies in the differential application of enforcement resources and public narratives to entities of different sizes.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws 1. Fines lead to continued operations, closures lead to narrative victories 2. Size determines regulatory outcomes, not just the degree of violations 3. When investigations yield no results, closures themselves become substitute outcomes.