Citigroup faces troubling allegations that an in-house security unit comprised of former law-enforcement officials penalized two compliance staffers who came forward with regulatory concerns and helped defend the institution against a lawsuit by a former employee who divulged to investigators that she was receiving threats of violence from her supervisor. 

CSIS, or the Citi Security and Investigative Services unit, is tasked with protecting “the employees, assets, information, integrity, and reputation of Citi and its clients,” according to new reporting by the Financial Times. Yet current and former employees of the bank expressed concerns to the FT over how the unit is deployed, including against employees who come forward to share information with CSIS investigators. 

Two former Citi employees claim in the report that they were effectively forced out of the bank after raising compliance concerns, while a third said the unit used her statements to counter litigation claiming that her supervisor sexually harassed and assaulted her after she ended their relationship. 

The former employees who flagged compliance matters said CSIS interviewed them shortly after they suggested that the bank’s regulatory efforts fell short of supervisory rules and orders, the FT said. One of them told the newspaper that she was fired one business day after detailing her concerns to the unit. 

The other person said that CSIS opened an investigation into her claims only to quickly close it and launch a new probe into her relationship with a male colleague, according to the report. CSIS refused to explain the reason for the new investigation, according to the second person, who said she did not have a relationship with the colleague that extended beyond their professional careers. 

The second person no longer works for the bank and believes that the probe was launched to punish her for flagging the compliance issues, the news outlet said. 

Ardith Lindsey was a 15-year veteran of Citi’s global equities markets division, where she said she had faced years of sexual harassment, according to the report. After she ended a volatile relationship with her supervisor Mani Singh, she began to get texts from Singh threatening to set her on fire and telling her to hug her children tightly because her “world will be over [tomorrow],” she claimed in the report. 

The executive, who said she was a “bitch” and “slut” in text, allegedly called her dozens of times in a single day and threatened to reduce her salary as a result of the rift. 

Once she reported the threats to Citi’s Human Resources department, Lindsey was told to meet with CSIS investigators. Although the security unit has told Citi employees that their discussions will remain confidential, the bank nonetheless cited her disclosures to the press and in legal filings, according to the FT. 

In a 2023 report on the sex abuse allegations, Citi spokesman Mark Costiglio told The New York Times that “when [Lindsey] reported the vile messages to us, she described the relationship as having been consensual.” 

“Citi’s CSIS operates as HR’s internal hit squad, highly trained to protect the firm at employees’ expense,” Lindsey told the FT.

Read more at the Financial Times