HSBC Aided Money-Laundering by Iran, Drug Cartels, Probe Shows

[MPB]

Sooner or later someone looking suitably discomfited will appear on the news, mouth perhaps half-open to inform us that major European banks have been laundering drug, extortion and prostitution racket money for Eastern European 'wealth creators' for some years now since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Which I, as you can see from any number of threads on banking on this forum, have been alleging for at least a couple of years now.

ING were busted for the same thing recently, laundering cocaine money on an industrial scale for Mexican drug lords.

The boards of these banks will be awfully, awfully, appalled to hear that. Basically when you look at some of the major banking groups in the west you are looking at the front office for organised crime definitely in Russia and eastern Europe. There has been a pipeline via Croatia and Albania for example for years washing money through and into the western European banking system via 'private wealth funds' in tax havens and via places like Austria and Luxembourg. Other tax havens are used in the Caymans and Bermuda for example through subsidiaries of these mittel-European banks.

They've been laundering for the mafia for decades- why should Russian criminals be any different?

+1.

Seemingly, Drug Lords, Arms dealers, Rogue Staes, Dictators, Al Queida, Criminal Gangs, Mafia Bosses and Oligarchs with connections to the KGB, have been hiding their billions under giant mattresses.

The global banking system is the biggest criminal organisation in the world.

The current revelations are not systemic mistakes, they are crimes.

These crimes were not perpetrated by institutions, but by the individuals running those institutions.

[C. Flower]

+1.

Seemingly, Drug Lords, Arms dealers, Rogue Staes, Dictators, Al Queida, Criminal Gangs, Mafia Bosses and Oligarchs with connections to the KGB, have been hiding their billions under giant mattresses.

The global banking system is the biggest criminal organisation in the world.

The current revelations are not systemic mistakes, they are crimes.

These crimes were not perpetrated by institutions, but by the individuals running those institutions.

Don't you think it is a bit of a big coincidence, that all these very corrupt individuals happened to find themselves in the same professions ?

[MPB]

Don't you think it is a bit of a big coincidence, that all these very corrupt individuals happened to find themselves in the same professions ?

No.

I think that these type of professions encourage corruption in these type of individuals.

Although, there are also a certain cohort attracted to these professions and they can and do influence the level of corruption in others.

Eqaulity is a non starter when somebody is in charge of it.

[PaddyJoe]

Good to see that Noonan has complete confidence in former HSBC executives David Hodgkinson, now AIB chairman, and Mike Geoghegan, who was first asked to carry out a review of NAMA by Noonan and then asked to chair an advisory board.

The Minister said he was “quite comfortable” with Mr Geoghegan’s advice on Nama, which he provides on a “pro-bono basis”.

“I am quite comfortable that he should continue in that role and there is nothing in that report in the United States that would make me change that position,” said Mr Noonan, who was speaking at the launch of the National Treasury Management Agency’s report for 2011.

In the report, HSBC was found to have “systematically” concealed thousands of US dollar transactions involving Iranian banks that should have been automatically flagged and subsequently scrutinised, to gauge whether they complied with US law.

The US Senate report outlines how these practices occurred over a six-year period up to 2007, even though senior executives – including Hodgkinson and Geoghegan – were made aware of their questionable legality.

“From at least 2001 to 2007, two HSBC affiliates, HSBC Europe and HSBC Middle East, repeatedly sent U-turn transactions through HBUS without disclosing links to Iran, even though they knew HBUS required full transparency to process U-turns,” the report, released earlier this week, said.

Mr Hodgkinson served as deputy chairman at HSBC’s operation in the Middle East at the time, and corresponded with Mr Geoghegan – then chief executive – in relation to the bank’s Iranian business.

On one such occasion, in June 2004, Mr Hodgkinson emailed Mr Geoghegan asking for his “intervention and support” in “positively resolving the long-standing issue”, while noting Iran’s “significant strategic importance” to the bank.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...320450685.html

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

'Pro bono'? More like 'cui bono' when it involves politicians and bankers. The only time they do anything for free is when they need to cover their arse.

[Dr. FIVE]

Golem

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2012/08/a-...of-drug-money/

[TotalMayhem]

Apparently, Deutsche Bank is in it as well, US authorities investigating violations of Iran sanctions by Germany's largest bank (and three other European banks,).

[C. Flower]

Apparently, Deutsche Bank is in it as well, US authorities investigating violations of Iran sanctions by Germany's largest bank (and three other European banks,).

Hypocrisy from the US who have been gun running to Mexico.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...reaking31.html

Following on from the onslaught on Standard Chartered, who were fined over 300 billion.

Ratcheting up sanctions and having a go at the European finance sector.

[DCon]

HSBC back in the headlines

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...gest-bank.html

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

The western banking system has been corrupt for quite a long time but it is only since the Berlin Wall came down that they started working on behalf of Russian gangsters.

There was always banking corruption by the mafia in Italy (Italy is pretty much a mafia state and has been since World War II) but the entire western banking system is now rotten with criminal money, much of it being washed through the west via bondholdings by 'private wealth funds' behind nominee accounts in Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and other 'constitutional confidentiality' havens.

I doubt there is a major bank in western Europe that doesn't have ties to organised crime at this stage.

[DCon]

HSBC to pay at least $1,900,000,000 in fines related to money laundering

According to the official, the bank will pay $1.25 billion in forfeiture and pay $655 million in civil penalties. The $1.25 billion figure is the largest forfeiture ever in a case involving a bank. Under what is known as a deferred prosecution agreement, the bank will be accused of violating the Bank Secrecy Act and the Trading With the Enemy Act.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...ering/1759619/

[C. Flower]

HSBC to pay at least $1,900,000,000 in fines related to money laundering



http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...ering/1759619/

"Trading with the Enemy" For heaven's sake.

That sounds like the kind of law that the British used against Iceland.

[PaddyJoe]

Michael Geoghegan, former chief executive of HSBC, was appointed to the NAMA advisory board by Noonan in December 2011.
David Hodgkinson, AIB chairman, was CEO of HSBC until the end of 2008, and was appointed to AIB by Lenihan in October 2010.

Would be interesting to hear what these chaps have to say on the record fines for money laundering imposed on HSBC by the US authorities.

(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.

In a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, the bank acknowledged it failed to maintain an effective program against money laundering and failed to conduct basic due diligence on some of its account holders.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8BA05M20121211