Tweet
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20673466
Is immunity winding down, especially as the prime criminals exit stage left?
Is immunity winding down, especially as the prime criminals exit stage left?
-
-
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
first it was TBTF. Now it's Too Big To Indict (TBTI) That's covering all bases . . . in the FIRE economyThe bank, which is based in Britain, faces accusations that it transferred billions of dollars for nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally through its American subsidiaries.
. . . the case raises questions about whether certain financial institutions, having grown so large and interconnected, are too big to indict.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/...laundering/?hp
Last edited by don; December 11, 2012, 09:42 AM. -
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
Nice picture Don.Comment
-
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
What is this, like 10% of one year's profit?
They're actions lead directly to murder, and all they gotta do is pay 10% of ONE year's profit?Comment
-
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
Yeah, at least if we are not going to indict them we should take a minimum whole years worth of profits, and ALL bonuses.Originally posted by aaron View PostComment
-
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
From the NYT the other day:Originally posted by doom&gloom View Post
EDITORIAL
Too Big to Indict
It is a dark day for the rule of law. Federal and state authorities have chosen not to indict HSBC, the London-based bank, on charges of vast and prolonged money laundering, for fear that criminal prosecution would topple the bank and, in the process, endanger the financial system. They also have not charged any top HSBC banker in the case, though it boggles the mind that a bank could launder money as HSBC did without anyone in a position of authority making culpable decisions.
Clearly, the government has bought into the notion that too big to fail is too big to jail. When prosecutors choose not to prosecute to the full extent of the law in a case as egregious as this, the law itself is diminished. The deterrence that comes from the threat of criminal prosecution is weakened, if not lost.
In the HSBC case, prosecutors may want the public to focus on the $1.92 billion settlement, which includes forfeiture of $1.26 billion and other penalties, as well as requirements to improve its internal controls and submit to the oversight of an outside monitor for the next five years. But even large financial settlements are small compared with the size of international major banks. More important, once criminal sanctions are considered off limits, penalties and forfeitures become just another cost of doing business, a risk factor to consider on the road to profits.
There is no doubt that the wrongdoing at HSBC was serious and pervasive. Several foreign banks have been fined in recent years for flouting United States sanctions against transferring money through American subsidiaries on behalf of clients in countries like Iran, Sudan and Cuba. HSBC’s actions were even more egregious. According to several law enforcement officials with knowledge of the inquiry, prosecutors found that, for years, HSBC had also moved tainted money from Mexican drug cartels and Saudi banks with ties to terrorist groups.
Those findings echo those of a Congressional report, issued in July, which said that between 2001 and 2010, HSBC exposed the American “financial system to money laundering and terrorist financing risks.” Prosecutors and Congressional investigators were also alarmed by indications that senior HSBC officials might have been complicit in the illegal activity and that the bank did not tighten its lax controls against money laundering even after repeated urgings from federal officials.
Yet government officials will argue that it is counterproductive to levy punishment so severe that a bank could be destroyed in the process. That may be true as far as it goes. But if banks operating at the center of the global economy cannot be held fully accountable, the solution is to reduce their size by breaking them up and restricting their activities — not shield them and their leaders from prosecution for illegal activities.Comment
-
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
No need to destroy the bank. You just need to destroy the lives of the top 40 corporate officers. Jail and poverty is what they deserve. Yes we can!
F*** Obama.Comment
-
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
using the state to eliminate the competition . . .
Once the founding document that has served this nation so well over the centuries (certainly not perfectly, but still far better than other nations), is chipped away at enough that it is rendered meaningless, the final more brutal and in your face feudal structure will be implemented. We cannot allow this to happen under any circumstances.
There are countless examples of rampant criminality and corruption as well as blatant evidence of a two-tier system of justice in America today. Too many to note or write about, but in this case I want to focus on this concept of “money laundering” in light of the recent shutdown of Liberty Reserve. This is how the Wall Street Journal describes the story:
The money was virtual, but prosecutors say the crime was real.
Officials brought charges against a group of men who allegedly manufactured an Internet-based currency to launder about $6 billion in ill-gotten gains, a sign of authorities’ rising concern with digital cash.
Liberty Reserve, which was incorporated in 2006, was a “bank of choice for the criminal underworld,” according to the indictment, which said the operation allegedly laundered the money through 55 million transactions before it was shut down earlier this month. The company has about one million users world-wide, including about 200,000 people in the U.S., according to prosecutors. They called the plot one of the largest money-laundering operations ever uncovered.
A spokesman for Liberty Reserve couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Prosecutors said Tuesday that they arrested five of the seven men charged in the indictment Friday in Spain, Costa Rica and Brooklyn, N.Y., and charged them with operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. The officials said they plan to seek extradition of those arrested abroad, and that the two remaining men are at large.
On Tuesday, in the first use of the 2001 Patriot Act against a virtual currency, the Treasury Department invoked a section of the law to choke off Liberty Reserve from the U.S. financial system. The Treasury’s proposal would prohibit U.S. financial institutions from opening or maintaining accounts for foreign banks that process transactions for Liberty Reserve and require special steps to guard against any transactions involving it.
Ok, now let’s compare the above to the way the authorities went after major financial institutions found laundering hundreds of millions of drug cartel money. HSBC is the most high profile example. From Reuters:
(Reuters) - HSBC Holdings Plc agreed to pay a record $1.92 billion in fines to U.S. authorities for allowing itself to be used to launder a river of drug money flowing out of Mexico and other banking lapses.
Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel and Colombia’s Norte del Valle cartel between them laundered $881 million through HSBC and a Mexican unit, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.
“We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organization from the one that made those mistakes,” HSBC Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver said.
Bank officials repeatedly ignored internal warnings that HSBC’s monitoring systems were inadequate, the Justice Department said. In 2008, for example, the CEO of HSBC Mexico was told that Mexican law enforcement had a recording of a Mexican drug lord saying that HSBC Mexico was the place to launder money.
No bank or bank executives have been indicted. Instead, prosecutors have used deferred prosecutions, under which criminal charges against a firm are set aside if it agrees to conditions such as paying fines and changing its behavior.
The difference in approach and in the application “justice” could not be more clear. In the case of Liberty Reserve, the entity was isolated from the U.S. financial system and those arrested will be targeted for extradition. Meanwhile a global manhunt is most likely on for the two remaining men at large. In other words, “money laundering” was uncovered and the “justice” in this case is that the operation was closed and the participants arrested. Ok.
Compare that to the HSBC settlement. No bank or bank executives were indicted despite the clear fact that there was a great deal of irresponsibility and criminality involved here. Not only that, but the bank merely has to pay a portion of its profits and life goes on. Like the IRS agents, they say they are “sorry” and promise to never do it again. That’s what happens when oligarchs or their minions break the law. When a regular citizen breaks the law, your life is ruined forever.
The crackdown on Liberty Reserve has nothing to do with “money laundering.” It’s about a cartel of “too big to jail” banks and the fraud financial system they operate eliminating any players that try to encroach on their turf. That isn’t capitalism, or socialism and it certainly isn’t anything close to freedom. It is a parasitic, oligarch created feudalistic structure that must be done away with. I often hear people say “we never learn from our mistakes.” Incorrect. People learn from their mistakes when there are consequences to their actions. Of course criminals don’t learn from their mistakes when there are no serious consequences to their crimes. Jail time would do the trick for a lot of bankers, politicians and bureaucrats.
Some money launderers are simply more equal than others.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...e-equal-othersComment
-
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
Hmmm. I wonder which is the safer buy...HSBC stock or Tesla stock...
Comment
-
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
nice misdirection - usually reserved for Big OilComment
-
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
Fits the profile. I grew up in Big Oil.Originally posted by don View Post
When the neighbourhood is full of criminals with immunity from prosecution, it can be dangerous to call the police...Comment
-
Re: HSBC to pay $1.9bn in US money laundering settlement
HA!Originally posted by don/ZH
its already happened - just a few more THOUSANDS of pages of lib-dem authored loophole-infested gobbledeegook legalese
and THE CRIME OF THE MILLENIUM will be complete!
since, afterall - if they keep repeating the same lies OVER AND OVER AGAIN, eventually it becomes the truth?
well, when we hear that "from 40000feet, nothing looked illegal...."There are countless examples of rampant criminality and corruption as well as blatant evidence of a two-tier system of justice in America today. Too many to note or write about, but in this case I want to focus on this concept of “money laundering” in light of the recent shutdown of Liberty Reserve. This is how the Wall Street Journal describes the story:
............
............
..........
Compare that to the HSBC settlement. No bank or bank executives were indicted despite the clear fact that there was a great deal of irresponsibility and criminality involved here. Not only that, but the bank merely has to pay a portion of its profits and life goes on. Like the IRS agents, they say they are “sorry” and promise to never do it again. That’s what happens when oligarchs or their minions break the law. When a regular citizen breaks the law, your life is ruined forever.
The crackdown on Liberty Reserve has nothing to do with “money laundering.” It’s about a cartel of “too big to jail” banks and the fraud financial system they operate eliminating any players that try to encroach on their turf. That isn’t capitalism, or socialism and it certainly isn’t anything close to freedom. It is a parasitic, oligarch created feudalistic structure that must be done away with. I often hear people say “we never learn from our mistakes.” Incorrect. People learn from their mistakes
when there are consequences to their actions. Of course criminals don’t learn from their mistakes when there are no serious consequences to their crimes. Jail time would do the trick for a lot of bankers, politicians and bureaucrats.
Some money launderers are simply more equal than others.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...e-equal-others
and the lapdogs of the party in power provide us with NOTHING BUT FAVORABLE/ACCOMODATIVE MEDIA COVERAGE (propaganda that IGNORES anything unfavorable to The Agenda)
what do he expect???Comment
Comment