Why Wall Street Leaders Have Escaped Prosecution

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Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on January 29, 2013 at 12:53pm

I agree 100% with this part:

Democrats and Republicans are not interested in justice when it comes to their benefactors' misdeeds. ... it is an abomination. It undermines the fundamental values upon which this democracy was created.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on February 16, 2013 at 1:18pm

HSBC, the bank of choice for criminals and terrorists, was given a slap on the wrist (just a fine) after investigation proved the most blatant misconduct. The justification was that if they (rightly) lost their banking license the entire banking industry would crumble.

HSBC ran offshore branches designed specifically for money laundering

In what Taibbi calls the “pinnacle innovation in the history of sleazy banking practices,” HSBC created a so-called “Cayman islands” branch in Mexico that let customers sidestep routine screening when opening accounts. The writer says clients “barely had to submit a real name and address, much less explain the legitimate origins of their deposits.” A 2002 audit revealed that 41 percent of accounts didn’t have complete client information.

When it turned out that American companies used these accounts to sell aircraft to drug cartels, HSBC Mexico finally shutout some of the “Cayman islands branch” clients—but not all of them. Taibbi notes that, “As late as 2012, when HSBC executives were being dragged before the U.S. Senate, the bank still had 20,000 such accounts worth some $670 million.”

HSBC did direct business with “the worst trafficking organizations imaginable.”

... the dealers HSBC did business with were some of the most violent in the world.

Former federal prosecutor Neil Barofsky told Rolling Stone HSBC worked for Colombia's Norte del Valle and Mexico's Sinaloa cartels — “groups that don't just commit murder on a mass scale but are known for beheadings, torture videos and other atrocities, none of which happens without money launderers.”

5 Outrageous Revelations from Matt Taibbi's Takedown on HSBC's Drug...