Sam Cooper

In a high-consequence case that remains, in The Bureau’s analysis, a key irritant between Washington and Ottawa over fentanyl deaths across North America, a former New York-based employee of TD Bank, Wilfredo Aquino, pleaded guilty Tuesday to facilitating a Chinese money laundering network’s movement of hundreds of millions of dollars through TD Bank accounts in return for bribes.

“The defendant leveraged his position at TD Bank and facilitated the criminal activity of a money laundering network,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva. “During the illicit scheme, the defendant evaded reporting requirements to hide the identity of the leader of the money laundering network.”

Court filings described Aquino as a TD Bank assistant store manager who, from 2019 through February 2021, “leveraged his position” to help a network led by Da Ying Sze — also known as David — move vast sums through TD Bank accounts. Prosecutors say David and his co-conspirators moved about $474 million through TD Bank accounts by depositing cash at TD Bank branches in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere.

The government alleges the network’s heaviest use of TD Bank ran through Aquino’s Midtown Manhattan store — and that no one there processed more illegal transactions than Aquino. In total, prosecutors said, Aquino processed roughly 1,680 official bank checks for the network, totaling more than $92 million — with most checks funded by corresponding cash deposits exceeding $10,000, triggering a legal requirement for TD Bank to file currency transaction reports. The Justice Department says Aquino knew David was the source of the cash but “never identified David” as the “conductor” on those reports, a step prosecutors say helped conceal the network’s leadership.

“While David’s Network used a number of TD Bank stores to conduct its money laundering activity, it laundered the most money through Aquino’s store,” prosecutors said. “Nobody processed more transactions for David’s Network at the Midtown Manhattan store than Aquino.”

The filing also lays out multiple warning signs that, prosecutors argue, Aquino chose to disregard. The Justice Department says Aquino knew TD Bank had closed other accounts linked to David for suspicious activity; and that a colleague warned him David’s activity “looks like money laundering.”

In February 2021, prosecutors say, Aquino facilitated three transactions totaling nearly $2 million in cash through a third party’s account, again failing to identify David as the conductor. Aquino accepted retail gift cards from David totaling more than $11,000 in return, according to the Justice Department.

David’s case, and the expanding list of insiders accused of enabling him and other networks, has become a marquee U.S. example of what American officials have described as systemic vulnerabilities in anti-money-laundering controls — a theme that burst into the open in October 2024, when TD Bank agreed to a historic U.S. resolution over its compliance failures.

U.S. regulators framed that TD enforcement action in explicitly fentanyl-era terms. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the U.S. Treasury bureau that administers major elements of the Bank Secrecy Act framework, announced a record $1.3 billion penalty and said TD’s chronic failures created “fertile ground” for illicit activity “from fentanyl and narcotics trafficking, to terrorist financing and human trafficking.”

TD Bank ultimately pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act and money laundering conspiracy violations and agreed to pay over $1.8 billion to resolve the Justice Department’s case—part of a broader U.S. resolution totaling about $3 billion in combined penalties and fines.

As The Bureau reported last April, a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s probe into TD Bank money laundering said that while major U.S. banks have also been exposed to Chinese money laundering cells that are now dominating global financial flows for Latin American cartels, TD Bank stood out.

What made TD unique, the official said, was its physical footprint and deep integration with Chinese community networks in both Toronto and New York—an infrastructure that proved ideal for laundering massive volumes of fentanyl cash.

American officials were also extremely concerned that Canadian regulators appeared to allow the money laundering to continue.

After the Justice Department opened its investigation, Canada’s Ministry of Finance imposed a fine on TD of about $9 million.

“What does Canada do on their side?” the official said in an interview. “It’s so minimal. How far does that go as far as accountability? So think about what that means for those groups in Canada that are operating through TD.”

Aquino, 47, pleaded guilty to a one-count information charging conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, and is scheduled to be sentenced May 12, according to the Justice Department.

David’s own guilty plea in 2022 offers a wider view of the sprawling Chinese money laundering network that U.S. government sources informed The Bureau was assessed to be commanded by Chinese gangsters in Canada — primarily in Toronto, and also in Vancouver — based on phone-call network tracing evidence.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey said Da Ying Sze admitted to coordinating a $653 million money laundering conspiracy, operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, and bribing bank employees in connection with financial transactions.

Prosecutors said that from 2016 through 2021, Sze laundered more than $653.3 million in cash consisting of narcotics and other illicit proceeds; deposited cash into bank accounts tied to shell companies and conspirators across multiple states; and then moved funds onward through official bank checks, personal and business checks, and international and domestic wires to “thousands of individuals and entities” in the United States, China, Hong Kong, and elsewhere — taking a reported one-to-two percent fee.

Federal prosecutors have also detailed other TD Bank insider cases — separate from the New York cash-deposit scheme — that they say followed a similar pattern: employees allegedly trading access, accounts, or bank instruments for bribes.

In December 2024, the Justice Department charged a former Florida-based TD Bank employee, Leonardo Ayala, alleging he helped facilitate money laundering to Colombia by issuing dozens of debit cards for accounts opened in the names of shell companies with nominee owners, with the accounts allegedly used to launder millions in narcotics proceeds through cash withdrawals at automated teller machines in Colombia.

And in June 2025, federal prosecutors said Jhonnatan Steven Rodriguez — described as a former Florida-based TD Bank employee — pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in exchange for fraudulently opening more than 100 bank accounts, including through forged signatures on account-opening documents.

Aquino’s guilty plea in New York now adds a fresh data point to that broader U.S. crackdown, but it also sharpens a political subtext that has shadowed the TD probes since the start: Washington’s insistence that financial compliance failures are not just a banking problem but a mass-casualty public safety issue in the fentanyl era — and, increasingly, an issue of cross-border accountability.

By Ian Bradbury

Addressing realities directly is the only path toward protecting communities, confronting extremism, and preventing further loss of life, Canadian national security expert argues.

After attacks by Islamic extremists, a familiar pattern follows. Debate erupts. Commentary and interviews flood the media. Op-eds, narratives, talking points, and competing interpretations proliferate in the immediate aftermath of bloodshed. The brief interval since the Bondi beach attack is no exception.

Many of these responses condemn the violence and call for solidarity between Muslims and non-Muslims, as well as for broader societal unity. Their core message is commendable, and I support it: extremist violence is horrific, societies must stand united, and communities most commonly targeted by Islamic extremists—Jews, Christians, non-Muslim minorities, and moderate Muslims—deserve to live in safety and be protected.

Yet many of these info-space engagements miss the mark or cater to a narrow audience of wonks. A recurring concern is that, at some point, many of these engagements suggest, infer, or outright insinuate that non-Muslims, or predominantly non-Muslim societies, are somehow expected or obligated to interpret these attacks through an Islamic or Muslim-impact lens. This framing is frequently reinforced by a familiar “not a true Muslim” narrative regarding the perpetrators, alongside warnings about the risks of Islamophobia.

These misaligned expectations collide with a number of uncomfortable but unavoidable truths. Extremist groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and decentralized attackers with no formal affiliations have repeatedly and explicitly justified their violence through interpretations of Islamic texts and Islamic history. While most Muslims reject these interpretations, it remains equally true that large, dynamic groups of Muslims worldwide do not—and that these groups are well prepared to, and regularly do, use violence to advance their version of Islam.

Islamic extremist movements do not, and did not, emerge in a vacuum. They draw from the broader Islamic context. This fact is observable, persistent, and cannot be wished or washed away, no matter how hard some may try or many may wish otherwise.

Given this reality, it follows that for most non-Muslims—many of whom do not have detailed knowledge of Islam, its internal theological debates, historical divisions, or political evolution—and for a considerable number of Muslims as well, Islamic extremist violence is perceived as connected to Islam as it manifests globally. This perception persists regardless of nuance, disclaimers, or internal distinctions within the faith and among its followers.

THE COST OF DENIAL AND DEFLECTION

Denying or deflecting from these observable connections prevents society from addressing the central issues following an Islamic extremist attack in a Western country: the fatalities and injuries, how the violence is perceived and experienced by surviving victims, how it is experienced and understood by the majority non-Muslim population, how it is interpreted by non-Muslim governments responsible for public safety, and how it is received by allied nations. Worse, refusing to confront these difficult truths—or branding legitimate concerns as Islamophobia—creates a vacuum, one readily filled by extremist voices and adversarial actors eager to poison and pollute the discussion.

Following such attacks, in addition to thinking first of the direct victims, I sympathize with my Muslim family, friends, colleagues, moderate Muslims worldwide, and Muslim victims of Islamic extremism, particularly given that anti-Muslim bigotry is a real problem they face. For Muslim victims of Islamic extremism, that bigotry constitutes a second blow they must endure. Personal sympathy, however, does not translate into an obligation to center Muslim communal concerns when they were not the targets of the attack. Nor does it impose a public obligation or override how societies can, do, or should process and respond to violence directed at them by Islamic extremists.

As it applies to the general public in Western nations, the principle is simple: there should be no expectation that non-Muslims consider Islam, inter-Islamic identity conflicts, internal theological disputes, or the broader impact on the global Muslim community, when responding to attacks carried out by Islamic extremists. That is, unless Muslims were the victims, in which case some consideration is appropriate.

Quite bluntly, non-Muslims are not required to do so and are entitled to reject and push back against any suggestion that they must or should. Pointedly, they are not Muslims, a fact far too many now seem to overlook.

The arguments presented here will be uncomfortable for many and will likely provoke polarizing discussion. Nonetheless, they articulate an important, human-centered position regarding how Islamic extremist attacks in Western nations are commonly interpreted and understood by non-Muslim majority populations.

Non-Muslims are free to give no consideration to Muslim interests at any time, particularly following an Islamic extremist attack against non-Muslims in a non-Muslim country. The sole exception is that governments retain an obligation to ensure the safety and protection of their Muslim citizens, who face real and heightened threats during these periods. This does not suggest that non-Muslims cannot consider Muslim community members; it simply affirms that they are under no obligation to do so.

The impulse for Muslims to distance moderate Muslims and Islam from extremist attacks—such as the targeting of Jews in Australia or foiled Christmas market plots in Poland and Germany—is understandable.

Muslims do so to protect their own interests, the interests of fellow Muslims, and the reputation of Islam itself. Yet this impulse frequently collapses into the “No True Scotsman” fallacy, pointing to peaceful Muslims as the baseline while asserting that the attackers were not “true Muslims.”

Such claims oversimplify the reality of Islam as it manifests globally and fail to address the legitimate political and social consequences that follow Islamic extremist attacks in predominantly non-Muslim Western societies. These deflections frequently produce unintended effects, such as strengthening anti-Muslim extremist sentiments and movements and undermining efforts to diminish them.

The central issue for public discourse after an Islamic extremist attack is not debating whether the perpetrators were “true” or “false” Muslims, nor assessing downstream impacts on Muslim communities—unless they were the targets.

It is a societal effort to understand why radical ideologies continue to emerge from varying—yet often overlapping—interpretations of Islam, how political struggles within the Muslim world contribute to these ideologies, and how non-Muslim-majority Western countries can realistically and effectively confront and mitigate threats related to Islamic extremism before the next attack occurs and more non-Muslim and Muslim lives are lost.

Addressing these realities directly is the only path toward protecting communities, confronting extremism, and preventing further loss of life.

Ian Bradbury, a global security specialist with over 25 years experience, transitioned from Defence and NatSec roles to found Terra Nova Strategic Management (2009) and 1NAEF (2014). A TEDx, UN, NATO, and Parliament speaker, he focuses on terrorism, hybrid warfare, conflict aid, stability operations, and geo-strategy.