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.

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Ex-Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced her resignation from Parliament amid Conservative criticism that she can’t serve Canada while working for a foreign government.

Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland is stepping down from Parliament after being appointed as an adviser in Ukraine.

In a January 5 post on X, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared the appointment of Freeland as an economic adviser to Ukraine, prompting Freeland to announce her resignation from the Canadian Parliament hours later.

“Today, I appointed Chrystia Freeland @cafreeland as an Advisor on Economic Development,” Zelensky wrote. “Chrystia is highly skilled in these matters and has extensive experience in attracting investment and implementing economic transformations.”

News of her appointment was blasted by Conservatives, who quickly pointed out that Freeland’s position in the Ukrainian government would compromise her work within the Canadian Parliament.

“You cannot serve as a member of Parliament (and collect an MP salary) while working for a foreign government,” Conservative MP Andrew Lawton wrote on X. “It’s that simple.”

Freeland responded to the backlash just hours later, revealing that she plans to resign from Parliament in the coming weeks.

“In accepting this voluntary position, I will be stepping aside from my role as the Prime Minister’s Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine,” she wrote.

“In the coming weeks, I will also leave my seat in Parliament. I want to thank my constituents for their years of confidence in me. I am so grateful to have been your representative,” Freeland concluded.

Despite serving as a Canadian MP, Freeland’s dedication to Ukraine has played an important role in her career since the beginning of the Ukraine and Russia conflict in 2022. Already, Freeland was serving as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Canada’s new Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine.

In May, Freeland was appointed minister of transport and internal trade in Carney’s cabinet after the federal election. Freeland was previously former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s deputy prime minister and finance minister.

However, she resigned from these positions in December 2024 after Trudeau requested her resignation as finance minister.

During her time in power, Freeland was known for her ties to globalist groups and her heavy-handed response to anti-mandate protesters during COVID.

During the 2022 Freedom Convoy to protest ongoing COVID regulations, Freeland froze the bank accounts of Canadians, who donated to the protest without a court order.

Later, hearings revealed that Freeland told fellow cabinet members the Freedom Convoy supporters whose bank accounts were frozen under the Emergencies Act would not be able to access their funds until they first reported to police.

Freeland was also personally commended by Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, for working to achieve his globalist goals.

In addition to attending WEF meetings, Freeland is currently a member of the WEF Board of Trustees.

Freeland also touted the WEF’s anti-carbon narrative just days after a “renewable” energy crisis left many Canadians without power during one of 2024’s coldest weeks.