New York's hefty bounty from financial wrongdoing

FILE - In this April 23, 2015 file photo, Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, speaks during a Senate hearing on subprime auto loans in Albany, N.Y. Lawsky, New York's top financial regulator, is stepping down after four years and billions of dollars of penalties and fees won from banks and insurance companies. (AP Photo/Mike Groll, File) Credit: AP
$6 billion -- That's how much New York's Department of Financial Services under Benjamin Lawsky reeled in from penalties paid by banking and insurance industries in the past four years.
The bounty filling the state's coffers is a result of the department's aggressive enforcement of laws prohibiting money laundering, mortgage fraud, tax evasion and interest-rate manipulations.
Lawsky, whom Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo tapped to start the new agency in 2011, is stepping down to teach and to start his own firm. Hey, thanks.