Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block has agreed in principle to pay $764 million to resolve a U.S. Justice Department investigation into its anti-money-laundering controls — a proposed settlement larger than the $566 million profit it reported for the third quarter.
The agreement, reached in October and disclosed in a November 3 SEC filing viewed by CoinDesk, would defer for three years a criminal charge alleging that Block failed to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program, as required under the Bank Secrecy Act.
The proposed resolution carries a gross monetary component of approximately $964 million, reduced to $764 million after credits for earlier regulatory settlements. Block has already set aside the latter amount, it said in the filing.
The investigation dates to 2023, when the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission began examining allegations concerning Block’s compliance practices and related disclosures following a short-seller report. The SEC closed its separate investigation in March without recommending enforcement action.
The report, by short seller Hindenburg Research, alleged that Cash App inflated its user numbers by counting duplicate and fraudulent accounts, while weak identity checks allowed criminals to use the platform for scams, money laundering and other illicit payments.
