Europe's largest bank HSBC guilty of massive money laundering, but no one will go to jail

Little-Acorn

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The largest banking firm in Europe and England, HSBC, has been found guilty of massive money laundering for Mexican drug cartels, Iranian terrorists, and others. But no jail sentences will be handed down, and none of the guilty will be punished.

The bank has been judged "too large to fail", so out of fear that they might do some harm to already-rickety European economies, the judges have decided that the only result will be a fine, amounting to less than a year's profits. The fine will be paid by shareholders, not by bank officers or anyone guilty of illegal acts.

It has basically come to the point in Europe where, if you are big enough, with enough people depending on you, The attitude of the government is, "Well, we won't punish you for breaking the law, enabling terrorists and drug kingpins, etc., even if they go on to kill a few thousand people. If you just cut us in on some of the proceeds, we'll let it all go, and you're off the hook. So, send the following amount to us at this account number...."

The HSBC officials said they were sorry. And in an unusually poignant statement, they even promised to say later, that they were sorry again.

It must be nice to be so big that you're above the law.

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/12/11/hsbc-laundering-probe/1760351/

HSBC will pay $1.9 billion for money laundering

Kevin McCoy, USA TODAYShare

Probe focused on the transfer of money on behalf of nations like Iran

2:51PM EST December 11. 2012 - NEW YORK — British banking giant HSBC agreed to pay a record $1.92 billion settlement Tuesday after a broad investigation by U.S. federal and state authorities found the bank violated federal laws by laundering money from Mexican drug trafficking and processing banned transactions on behalf of Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma .

The settlement, a combination of forfeitures and civil penalties, shows the London-headquartered financial powerhouse for years deliberately channeled hundreds of millions of dollars of the prohibited transactions through its U.S. arm.

"HSBC is being held accountable for stunning failures of oversight — and worse — that led the bank to permit narcotics traffickers and others to launder millions of dollars through HSBC subsidiaries, and to facilitate hundreds of millions more in transactions with sanctioned countries," said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in announcing the largest settlement of its kind.

"The record of dysfunction that prevailed at HSBC for many years was astonishing," said Breuer.

The settlement, part of a deferred prosecution agreement filed in Brooklyn federal court, means HSBC avoids a criminal conviction on money laundering and other major charges — which could have amounted to a financial death sentence by blocking the bank's access to the U.S. banking system.

The settlement is the latest and largest of several deals U.S. authorities have reached with other banks over similar allegations. Federal and state prosecutors retain legal power to prosecute HSBC if the bank fails to comply with banking and oversight reforms included in the agreement, including the appointment of an independent monitor.

"We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again," HSBC Group Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver said in a statement earlier Tuesday.
HSBC shares were up 0.5% to $51.82 in afternoon trading Tuesday. The shares also traded higher in London.

"Obviously, $1.9 billion is a very large number, but it's very manageable" without affecting HSBC's bottom line, said Ian Gordon, head of bank research for Investec Securities in London. "It's clearly within market expectations."

Some legal analysts questioned U.S. authorities' failure to force HSBC to plead guilty to criminal charges.

Between 2006 and 2010, the Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, Colombia's Norte del Valle Cartel and other alleged drug traffickers laundered at least $881 million in illegal proceeds through accounts in HSBC's U.S. arm, the filings show.

"These traffickers didn't have to try very hard," said Breuer. "They would sometimes deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows in HSBC Mexico's branches."

Similarly, HSBC bankers as far back as 2001 cleared U.S. dollar transactions through the bank's U.S. arm while hiding the fact that the money was linked to Iran's Bank Melli. A June 2001 email from an HSBC relationship manager in Europe wrote that Bank Melli had been instructed not to input an "Iranian referenced customer name" with the transaction, thus avoiding any sign of a U.S. legal breach.

The details echoed findings of a July report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The panel found evidence that two HSBC affiliates routed nearly 25,000 Iran-linked transactions involving $19.4 billion through the bank's U.S. arm over a seven-year period. Those transactions violated U.S. and British law.
 
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so did some horse's heads start turning up in government beds to cause this ?

horse-head-godfather.jpg
 
We missed a golden opportunity to deal a massive financial blow to Iran, the Mexican drug cartels and terror groups - all at the same time... with a pyramid scheme. Between Bernie Madoff and SS, our government certainly knows a thing or three about pyramid schemes. Use the HSBC contacts as assets and have them get each one of our enemies fully invested with everything they got... Then go public with the fact that it was all an elaborate hoax used to trick our nations enemies into handing over gigantic sums of money to the US and British governments.
 
This settlement with HSBC is a perfect example of the unbelievable corruption and fraud existing in the United States.

1. The fine against HSBC amounts to a few weeks of operating profit. Big deal.
2. The government specifically did not indict any of HSBC's executives, many of whom knew of the criminal money laundering, because they claim it might have hurt the economy. Too big to fail....so nice.
3. American prisons are full of people who were apprehended and incarcerated for possessing small amounts of illegal drugs. Or how about the many Americans who have drug convictions on their record and are now unable to find jobs. The injustice of the drug war is over the top.
4. The police state that is now the USA profits from the drug war.
5. Police use the drug war to commit all sorts of injustices and unconstitutional actions.

This HSBC story should be big news, but thanks to the state run media, it was buried.

I guess the moral of the story is, if you do something illegal in a big way, you get away with it. If you do it in a small way, you get hammered by the police state.

tyranny-4.jpg
 
Look at poor Martha..she did not launder DRUG money! She also was not a bank...and she got jail time..They will NEVER get jail time... And neither will the politicians in bed with them. More than criminal charges, individuals would likely experience "enhanced interrogation techniques" and spend the rest of their lives in military prisons for aiding and abetting the enemy. ABC's article explained this situation better, "And HSBC's U.S. division provided money and banking services to some banks in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh thought to have helped fund al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, the report said." Standard Chartered PLC, another British Bank, was also involved in money laundering involving Iran and Mexican drug cartels. To put the so-called fine in perspective, that news agency said the fine amounted to, "9% of each company's 2012 pre-tax profits." So help Iran, al-Qaida and Mexican drug cartels (involved in their own war of terror, over 30,000 dead already) and get fined 9% of your profits. In other words, you get to keep 91% of the profits. But try to take a 4 oz. of water onto a plane. TSA will tackle your ass.
 
This settlement with HSBC is a perfect example of the unbelievable corruption and fraud existing in the United States.

1. The fine against HSBC amounts to a few weeks of operating profit. Big deal.
2. The government specifically did not indict any of HSBC's executives, many of whom knew of the criminal money laundering, because they claim it might have hurt the economy. Too big to fail....so nice.
3. American prisons are full of people who were apprehended and incarcerated for possessing small amounts of illegal drugs. Or how about the many Americans who have drug convictions on their record and are now unable to find jobs. The injustice of the drug war is over the top.
4. The police state that is now the USA profits from the drug war.
5. Police use the drug war to commit all sorts of injustices and unconstitutional actions.

This HSBC story should be big news, but thanks to the state run media, it was buried.

I guess the moral of the story is, if you do something illegal in a big way, you get away with it. If you do it in a small way, you get hammered by the police state.

tyranny-4.jpg
Smoke a joint in Alabama and get prison time. Launder billions of DRUG PROFITS for the drug cartels and get a fine. What's wrong with this picture?! Where is the outrage ? Where are the front page headlines ?
 
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