TD Bank Sued by Chinese Employees in US Claiming Illegal Firing

Toronto-Dominion Bank was sued by a group of former employees who claim they were improperly fired from their jobs amid disclosure of widespread criminal money laundering through bank branches.

Five Chinese and Chinese-American former employees sued Toronto-Dominion claiming they were dismissed from branches in New York City as part of the bank’s effort to crack down on money laundering. At least 22 people were fired from four Chinatown branches in the city’s Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens boroughs, they said.

The plaintiffs claim they were hired to forge ties with Toronto-Dominion customers with Chinese ancestry, and then subjected to illegal firing and debanking based on their ethnicity. They’re seeking unspecified damages.

The former employees “were punished for crimes committed by other Chinese individuals — crimes they were not involved in by individuals they did not know,” according to the complaint filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court.

The five plaintiffs are seeking to sue as a nationwide class of Chinese and Chinese-American Toronto-Dominion branch employees in the US who have been investigated and fired for “unspecific violations” of the company’s code of conduct and ethics since 2022.

Toronto-Dominion declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

In October last year, Toronto-Dominion pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and struck a $3.1 billion settlement with US authorities. The settlement was the culmination of years-long investigations into the bank’s failure to catch and stop multiple criminal rings from using its branches to launder money associated with drug trafficking and other illicit activity.

The firm, Canada’s second-largest bank, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on improvements to its anti-money-laundering controls and has hired dozens of experts to bulk up its programs.

One network that operated out of a clothing warehouse in Queens ultimately laundered $474 million through Toronto-Dominion branches alone, according to court documents. Da Ying Sze, the leader of that ring who later pleaded guilty, paid bribes to Toronto-Dominion tellers throughout New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to keep the operation running smoothly when he deposited piles of cash and then quickly used the money to purchase bank checks, records show. 

The scandal upended Toronto-Dominion’s upper management and corporate board — long-serving Chief Executive Officer Bharat Masrani stepped down early and six directors, including the chairman, left the board this year.

Toronto-Dominion has 10 million US retail clients and about 1,100 branches concentrated along the East Coast. It faces a cap on its US retail banking assets as a result of the settlement.

The case is Wong v. TD Bank Group, 25-cv-09634, US District Court, Southern District of New York .

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