Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
US Presidential Election Year Stock Market Seasonal Trend - 29th Nov 24
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past - 29th Nov 24
Gold After Trump Wins - 29th Nov 24
The AI Stocks, Housing, Inflation and Bitcoin Crypto Mega-trends - 27th Nov 24
Gold Price Ahead of the Thanksgiving Weekend - 27th Nov 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast to June 2025 - 24th Nov 24
Stocks, Bitcoin and Crypto Markets Breaking Bad on Donald Trump Pump - 21st Nov 24
Gold Price To Re-Test $2,700 - 21st Nov 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks: This Is My Strong Warning To You - 21st Nov 24
Financial Crisis 2025 - This is Going to Shock People! - 21st Nov 24
Dubai Deluge - AI Tech Stocks Earnings Correction Opportunities - 18th Nov 24
Why President Trump Has NO Real Power - Deep State Military Industrial Complex - 8th Nov 24
Social Grant Increases and Serge Belamant Amid South Africa's New Political Landscape - 8th Nov 24
Is Forex Worth It? - 8th Nov 24
Nvidia Numero Uno in Count Down to President Donald Pump Election Victory - 5th Nov 24
Trump or Harris - Who Wins US Presidential Election 2024 Forecast Prediction - 5th Nov 24
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Laundromat Banks Too Big To Fail

Politics / Banksters Feb 01, 2014 - 12:06 PM GMT

By: Richard_Mills

Politics

Money laundering is the process by which illegally obtained cash is made to appear as if it has been obtained by legal means.

The following snippet is fromRobert Mazur's 'How to Halt the Terrorist Money Train' article that appeared in The New York Times:

"The House Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management issued a shocking report documenting the collaboration between Mexican and Colombian drug cartels and Hezbollah in narcotics and human trafficking, smuggling and financial crimes in the United States and Latin America -- a partnership that, in just the border region between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, produces an estimated $12 billion in cash each year.


Yet data from the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture Fund and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Research Report show that United States law enforcement tracks down and seizes no more than 1 percent of the drug fortunes generated each year by global cartels.

The rest isn't hiding in mattresses. It's being washed -- stripped clean of information that would identify its source, then transferred from one account to another, and often moved surreptitiously through various business enterprises, until it can settle safely in a criminal's private offshore bank account. None of this happens without help from bankers, lawyers and businessmen."

According to the U.S. Department of Justice the Sinaloa drug cartel, together with Columbian drug traffickers, the Norte del Valle Cartel, moved $881 million through HSBC between 2006 and 2010.

"The investigation further revealed that drug traffickers were depositing hundreds of thousands of dollars in bulk U.S. currency each day into HSBC Mexico accounts. In order to efficiently move this volume of cash through the teller windows at HSBC Mexico branches, drug traffickers designed specially shaped boxes that fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows. The drug traffickers would send numerous boxes filled with cash through the teller windows for deposit into HSBC Mexico accounts. After the cash was deposited in the accounts, peso brokers then wire transferred the U.S. dollars to various exporters located in New York City and other locations throughout the United States to purchase goods for Colombian businesses. The U.S. exporters then sent the goods directly to the businesses in Colombia." ~ U.S. Department of Justice

In violation of the Trading With the Enemy Act HSBC also used various schemes to move hundreds of millions of dollars to nations subject to trade sanctions. The list of nations included Iran, Cuba and the Sudan.

"On at least one occasion HSBC instructed a bank in Iran on how to format payment messages so that the transactions would not be blocked or rejected by the United States." ~ Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer

HBUS, the American affiliate of HSBC, repeatedly broke American Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws. HBUS supplied the Saudi bank Al Rajhi with nearly US $1 billion, Al Rajhi used at the money to finance terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda.

"They violated every goddamn law in the book. They took every imaginable form of illegal and illicit business." ~ Jack Blum, an attorney and former Senate investigator regarding HSBC

Since 2006 more than a dozen banks have reached settlements with the Justice Department regarding violations related to money laundering including the following entities:

  • ING Bank
  • American Express Bank International
  • Union Bank of California
  • Lloyds
  • Credit Suisse
  • ABN Amro Holding (now owned by Royal Bank of Scotland)
  • Barclays
  • Standard Chartered.

All these banks admitted guilt and all were handed traffic tickets - please pay your fine on the way out the door.

"You know, if you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're going to go to jail. If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night." ~ U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren

At one time Pablo Escobar's drug cartel controlled 80 percent of the world's cocaine trade. His recipe for success was: "You bribe someone here, you bribe someone there, and you pay a friendly banker to help you bring the money back."

Story Time

On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen. Inside the jet were 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m.

During an almost two year investigation by the DEA and the IRS it emerged that the smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo.

The authorities uncovered billions of dollars in wire transfers, traveler's checks and cash shipments through Mexican exchanges into Wachovia accounts.

Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia but, even though it was the biggest action ever brought under the US bank secrecy act, the case never made it to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled through the US district court in Miami and the bank is now in the clear.

A Lebanese bank accused of laundering drug money through U.S. banks and routing it to Hezbollah will pay $102 million to settle a 2011 lawsuit brought by the U.S. government.

The U.S. accused the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) of using the U.S. banking system to launder proceeds from drug trafficking through West Africa and back to Lebanese financial institutions with ties to Hezbollah.

These cases are only the tip of the iceberg demonstrating the role the legal banking sector plays in laundering hundreds of billions of drug and terrorist dollars around their global tax payer bailed out operations.

Oh the irony

On 4 March 2013 HSBC announced profits of $20.6 billion in 2012 while it paid out a $3 million bonus to its CEO.

Late last year several HSBC customers told BBC Radio 4's MoneyBox program that when they attempted to withdraw certain sums, between £5,000 and £10,000, they were asked to provide proof why they needed the money.

How would you feel if a bank teller told you that you couldn't withdraw the amount of money you wanted from your account? What would your reaction be if he or she said "You can have $2,000.00 but you can't have $5,000.00."

What would your reaction be if the bank asked you why you needed your money, you were enough of a sheep to tell them, they said "Prove it, then you'll get your money."

"We ask our customers about the purpose of large cash withdrawals when they are unusual and out of keeping with the normal running of their account. Since last November, in some instances we may have also asked these customers to show us evidence of what the cash is required for.

The reason being we have an obligation to protect our customers, and to minimize the opportunity for financial crime." ~ HSBC

If you're a big bank moving money for a drug cartel or terrorist organization and get caught you pay a fine (HSBC paid $1.9b in fines and forfeitures - 10 percent of the pretax profits it earned in 2010) and then you up your fees.

Of course the perfect irony is the 'small guy' taxpayers are then the ones asked to provide proof as to why they need a couple of thousand dollars.

Conclusion

"Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges, HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized." Lanny Bauer, Assistant Attorney General

"In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor...Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities... There were signs that some banks were rescued that way." ~ Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime

'Too big to fail' means dealing drugs and funding terrorist groups is acceptable to our dear political leaders and their shadow puppet masters, the banksters.

This truth should be on all our radar screens. Is it on yours?

If not, it should be.

By Richard (Rick) Mills

www.aheadoftheherd.com

rick@aheadoftheherd.com

If you're interested in learning more about the junior resource and bio-med sectors please come and visit us at www.aheadoftheherd.com

Site membership is free. No credit card or personal information is asked for.

Richard is host of Aheadoftheherd.com and invests in the junior resource sector.
His articles have been published on over 400 websites, including: Wall Street Journal, Market Oracle, USAToday, National Post, Stockhouse, Lewrockwell, Pinnacledigest, Uranium Miner, Beforeitsnews, SeekingAlpha, MontrealGazette, Casey Research, 24hgold, Vancouver Sun, CBSnews, SilverBearCafe, Infomine, Huffington Post, Mineweb, 321Gold, Kitco, Gold-Eagle, The Gold/Energy Reports, Calgary Herald, Resource Investor, Mining.com, Forbes, FNArena, Uraniumseek, Financial Sense, Goldseek, Dallasnews, Vantagewire, Resourceclips and the Association of Mining Analysts.

Copyright © 2014 Richard (Rick) Mills - All Rights Reserved

Legal Notice / Disclaimer: This document is not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for any investment. Richard Mills has based this document on information obtained from sources he believes to be reliable but which has not been independently verified; Richard Mills makes no guarantee, representation or warranty and accepts no responsibility or liability as to its accuracy or completeness. Expressions of opinion are those of Richard Mills only and are subject to change without notice. Richard Mills assumes no warranty, liability or guarantee for the current relevance, correctness or completeness of any information provided within this Report and will not be held liable for the consequence of reliance upon any opinion or statement contained herein or any omission. Furthermore, I, Richard Mills, assume no liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage or, in particular, for lost profit, which you may incur as a result of the use and existence of the information provided within this Report.

Richard (Rick) Mills Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in