Home loans tied to suspected mafia boss expose gaps in TD and RBC policies
Canadian big banks Toronto Dominion (TD) Bank and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) have been linked to mortgages held by an alleged mafia leader in the Toronto area, according to a recent investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
The report revealed that both banks have continued to finance homes owned by Angelo Figliomeni, a Toronto-area man with alleged ties to the ’Ndrangheta, a notorious Italian mafia organization. Property records showed that TD holds mortgages for two of Figliomeni’s properties, while RBC finances two others.
These mortgages were issued in the 2010s, despite Figliomeni’s history of criminal allegations and a 2019 arrest that police described as the “biggest mafia takedown” in Toronto-area history.
Mafia boss
Figliomeni’s criminal record includes a conviction in Italy in the 1990s for possessing illegal weapons and mafia membership, according to the OCCRP report.
He fled to Canada, where media reports in 2006 and 2015 linked him to organized crime. In 2019, Canadian authorities charged Figliomeni and his associates with money laundering and other crimes, but the case was stayed before going to trial.
Despite this, TD and RBC have maintained their business relationships with Figliomeni. According to Gary Clement, a former superintendent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and expert on financial crime, the banks should have flagged Figliomeni as a “high-risk” client.
"They took these mortgages out, which tells me right off the bat [the banks] never did enhanced due diligence,” Clement said. "That should have been picked up right from day one. These guys would have shown up on some alert."
While TD and RBC may be contractually obligated to honour existing mortgages, Clement argued that sufficient evidence of organized crime ties should have prompted immediate action.
"If [the banks] were misled by the individuals when they onboarded them, then they would have grounds, probably, to break it," Clement said.
“On an ongoing basis, we complete account and product reviews, and address any situation where we can no longer support a client's accounts," TD spokesperson Allyson Theriault responded, but declined to comment in detail on the bank’s continued dealings with Figliomeni.
An anonymous TD employee indicated the bank began the process of “demarketing” Figliomeni, cancelling his products and services, after his 2019 arrest. However, TD declined to clarify the terms of his current mortgages.
RBC spokesperson Cheryl Brean said the bank evaluates business relationships on a case-by-case basis but cited privacy concerns in declining further comment.
Banking scandals and frozen assets
The findings come at a time when TD is already under scrutiny for its handling of anti-money laundering procedures.
In October, the US Department of Justice imposed a $3 billion penalty on TD, the largest ever under the Banking Secrecy Act, for allowing US$670 million to be laundered through its accounts over nearly a decade.
Canada’s financial watchdog, FINTRAC, also fined TD US$9 million earlier this year for failing to assess and document money-laundering risks, while RBC faced a similar US$7.5 million penalty in December 2023.
Read more: Money laundering in Canada: A problem government is happy to overlook?
While FINTRAC did not specify the cases in question, court filings confirmed that TD received legal production orders during the police investigation into Figliomeni, suggesting the bank was aware of the risks.
Despite this, mortgages on Figliomeni’s properties (two homes in Vaughan financed by TD for CAD$1.5 million and two others in Vaughan and Mississauga financed by RBC for CAD$1.5 million) remain active.
During Project Sindacato, police seized CAD$35 million in assets and froze 27 properties tied to Figliomeni’s group, valued at CAD$24 million. Authorities also froze approximately 500 accounts at RBC, TD, CIBC, and the Bank of Montreal, all linked to the alleged criminal group.
Despite these efforts, all seized assets were eventually returned when prosecutors stayed the charges against Figliomeni and his co-accused. The legal team successfully argued that investigators had unlawfully intercepted privileged communications between the suspects and their lawyers.
Once the charges were stayed, the restraint orders were lifted. Among these properties were four houses with mortgages held by TD and RBC.
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