Eighty-six accounts, one Miami commercial address, and a bank employee who was being paid on the side. That is how federal prosecutors describe the case against Gerardo Aquino, 40, of Hollywood, Florida, a former TD Bank employee who pleaded guilty on Oct. 6 in federal court in New Jersey, according to the Justice Department.

Aquino pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and to receipt of bribes by a bank employee. He has not been sentenced. Sentencing is set for March 23, 2027.

The question many TD Bank customers and other bank account holders will ask is whether an insider can put their money at risk. The Justice Department’s announcement does not say whether any customer lost money in this case. What it describes is an employee who, prosecutors say, opened fraudulent accounts and handed out debit cards for others to use. It also leaves a broader point for anyone with a checking account: the safeguards a bank sets on a card only work if the people inside the bank leave them in place.

This case is still moving toward sentencing, and The Retirement Money Brief will cover the next step in plain English when it happens.

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What prosecutors say Aquino did

The Justice Department says that from April 2022 to November 2023, Aquino “opened fraudulent accounts, issued hundreds of debit cards to co-conspirators, and unblocked debit cards that TD Bank had restricted due to potential fraud.” He created 86 accounts using the same Miami commercial address, and more than $3 million was laundered through those accounts alone, the department says.

Across the whole scheme, about $4.8 million was sent to Colombia, according to the announcement. In return, Aquino received more than $8,000 in bribes, paid in cash and through a peer-to-peer digital payment network.

Why unblocking a flagged card matters

A bank restricts a debit card when activity on it looks like possible fraud, and the restriction is meant to hold until the bank sorts it out. According to the Justice Department, Aquino lifted such restrictions on cards that TD Bank had blocked “due to potential fraud.”

That detail is the heart of the insider angle. A fraud flag is meant to be a stop sign, and the announcement says an employee took it down. How the bank’s own systems and reviewers handled the activity is not described in the announcement.

Two charges and the penalties they carry

The Justice Department lists the maximum penalty for the money laundering conspiracy count as 20 years, and for the bribery count as 30 years. Those are the legal ceilings, not the sentence. A judge decides the actual sentence at the hearing in March.

Four agencies investigated, the department says: the Drug Enforcement Administration, IRS Criminal Investigation, the FDIC Office of Inspector General and the Morristown Police Department. The announcement quotes Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer of the District of New Jersey, along with officials from the DEA and the FDIC inspector general’s office.

What the plea does and does not show

A guilty plea is a formal admission of the charges in court, and it settles the question of guilt for Aquino. It does not describe what happened to any individual TD Bank customer, and the announcement names no customer harm. No other defendants are named in it either.

For the typical account holder, the lesson is narrower than “banks are unsafe.” Unauthorized electronic transactions come with legal protections for customers, and those protections depend on how fast a customer speaks up.

If money leaves an account without permission

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explains the timing rules on its page about unauthorized transactions. A customer who tells the bank within two business days of discovering a lost or stolen card cannot be held responsible for more than $50 or the amount of the unauthorized transactions, whichever is less. After two business days, the exposure can rise to $500, and a customer who waits more than 60 days after the statement showing the problem can be fully liable for later transactions.

Alerts make the early notice possible. Most banks let customers turn on text or app alerts for card purchases, large withdrawals, new payees and changes to contact details. Statements are worth a look each month for accounts and cards that were never opened by the customer, and a debit card that stops working unexpectedly deserves a call to the number on its back.

Under the CFPB’s timeline, a bank has 10 business days to investigate a reported error, and if it cannot finish by then it must generally issue a temporary credit, minus a maximum of $50. A written note of the date, the amount and the person spoken to makes each of those steps easier to follow.

More Financial Reading

• How many CDs can you park at 1 bank? FDIC rules you must know
• Adding someone to your bank account: tax traps and smart moves
• Bank statements: how long to keep them and when to toss them

AI tools helped produce this article, which was edited for accuracy against the Justice Department and CFPB pages linked above.