Capital One Financial (COF), the lender that agreed to pay $210 million to settle U.S. charges of deceptive marketing of credit-card products, hired the nation's top immigration official to head compliance operations.
John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will join the McLean, Virginia-based bank in August as a senior vice president, Tatiana Stead, a company spokeswoman, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
"Compliance is a high priority for our company and we couldn't be more pleased that he will be joining our team," Stead said.
Regulators are pressing banks to improve their defenses against money-laundering and other types of fraud. Last year, in the first public enforcement case brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Capital One agreed to settle charges that third-party vendors engaged in deceptive marketing of credit-card "add-on" products such as payment protection and credit monitoring.
"John has strengthened ICE's investigative efforts, with a particular emphasis on border crimes, export controls, intellectual property enforcement and child exploitation," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a separate statement.
Before joining ICE, Morton spent 15 years at the Justice Department, serving in multiple positions including assistant U.S. attorney and acting deputy assistant attorney general of the criminal division, according to Napolitano's statement.
Dow Jones Newswires reported on Morton's new job yesterday.
