Former TD Employee Pleads Guilty in $3.4mn Fraud

A former TD Bank employee, Cheungkin Lam, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and making false bank entries, as reported by American Banker.

Lam, who worked as a financial service representative at a Queens, New York, branch, is the fifth former TD employee to plead guilty to workplace-related offenses in New Jersey federal court this year. He admitted to using his credentials between January and May 2021 to identify high-value customers by requesting monthly “large balance reports.” He then passed that confidential information to outside co-conspirators who drained the balances. In one instance, a single customer lost $417,300 over two days, a loss TD covered by reimbursing the victim.

In total, the ring attempted to steal $6.5 million and succeeded in stealing roughly $3.4 million. Lam accepted at least $155,000 in bribes throughout the scheme. As a part of his plea, Lam agreed to pay $3.4 million in restitution and accepted a permanent ban from working in banking.

His case differs from other TD insider cases this year, American Banker explains, which involved moving drug money for laundering networks rather than stealing directly from customers. These prosecutions follow TD Bank's October 2024 guilty plea, in which it paid penalties exceeding $1.8 billion to settle criminal money-laundering charges, alongside further fines from its regulators. TD continues to operate under an asset cap as a result, and its anti-money-laundering remediation efforts are subject to oversight by an independent compliance monitor.