JPMorgan Chase, Bernard Madoff's bank, to pay US$1.7b to settle charges

For more than 15 years, there were signs something was amiss with what US federal prosecutors in Manhattan call the "703 account" at JPMorgan Chase.

Money was being transferred back and forth for no reason. The account holder was recording double-digit returns on investments that were too good to be true. The bank itself was worried enough about possible fraud to withdraw its own investments from him.

The name on the account was Bernard Madoff and on Tuesday JPMorgan paid a steep price for keeping quiet about its suspicions.

Federal authorities announced the nation's largest bank will add to its other costly financial woes by forfeiting a record US$1.7 billion to settle criminal charges alleging it turned a blind eye to the Madoff fraud, plus pay an additional US$543 million to settle civil claims by victims.

It also will pay another US$350 million civil penalty for what the Treasury Department called "critical and widespread deficiencies" in its programmes to prevent money laundering and other suspicious activity. The bank failed to carry out its legal obligations to guard against money laundering while Madoff "built his massive house of cards", George Venizelos, head of the FBI's New York office, said at a news conference.

Madoff banked at JPMorgan through what court papers referred to as the "703 account". In 2008, the bank's London desk circulated a memo describing JPMorgan's inability to validate his trading activity or custody of assets and his "odd choice" of a one-man accounting firm, the government said.