BEFORE HIS FIRST DAY IN OFFICE AS PRESIDENT, BARACK OBAMA
HAD ALREADY SUCKED OFF MORE BANKSTER BRIBES THAN ANY PRESIDENT IN HISTORY. WHAT
DID THE BANKSTERS KNOW THAT THE REST OF US DID NOT?
A key factor in Obama’s newfound and growing wealth are
those who profited from his presidency. A number of his public speeches have
been given to big Wall Street firms and investors. Obama has given at least
nine speeches to Cantor Fitzgerald, a large investment and commercial real
estate firm, and other high-end corporations. According to records, each speech
has been at least $400,000 a clip.
“Money laundering is a crime that makes other crimes
possible. It can accelerate economic inequality, drain public funds, undermine
democracy, and destabilize nations—and the banks play a key role. ‘Some of
these people in crisp white shirts in their sharp suits are feeding off the
tragedy of people dying all over the world,’ said Martin Woods, a former
suspicious transactions investigator for Wachovia.’”
BLOG EDITOR: JP MORGAN IS BARACK OBAMA’S FAVE CRIMINAL
BANKSTER. THEY HAVE BEEN VERY GENEROU$ TO OBOMB AND HIS BIDENBOY.
“The other banks on the top 10 list are JPMorgan Chase
(whose CEO Jamie Dimon was once known as Obama's "favorite banker"),
New York Mellon, Standard Chartered, Barclays, HSBC, Bank of China, Bank of
America, Wells Fargo and Citibank.”
HSBC
HAS LONG HAD A HISTORY AS THE CHOICE BANKSTER FOR THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS. OBAMA’S
BANKSTER REGIME MADE SURE THAT NO ONE WENT TO PRISON AT HSBC. DURING HIS 8
YEARS BANKSTER-OWNED ERIC HOLDER, A SOCIOPATH LAWYER, MADE SURE THAT NO
BANKSTER PERIOD SAW PRISON TIME. NOT THEY’RE BACK AT IT. WHO WOULD HAVE
THOUGHT?!?
The report goes on to explain that “even after they were
prosecuted or fined for financial misconduct, banks such as JPMorgan Chase,
HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon continued
to move money for suspected criminals.”
In 2012, the Obama
administration refused to criminally prosecute Britain’s biggest bank, HSBC,
after it acknowledged laundering billions of dollars for Mexican and Colombian
drug cartels. Among the bank’s major clients was the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico,
which is known for dismembering its victims and publicly displaying their body
parts.
“Attorney
General Eric Holder's tenure was a low point even within the disgraceful
scandal-ridden Obama years.” DANIEL GREENFIELD / FRONTPAGE MAG
“Judicial Watch’s records
request is designed to expose how California state legislators are wasting tax
dollars to take care of another corrupt politician – Eric Holder – under the
guise of resisting the rule of law on immigration and other matters,”
stated Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “His record at the Clinton and Obama Justice Departments
demonstrates a willingness to bend the law in order to protect his political
patrons.”
And it all got much, much worse after 2008,
when the schemes collapsed and, as Lemann points out, Barack Obama did not
aggressively rein in Wall Street as Roosevelt had done, instead restoring the
status quo ante even when it meant ignoring a staggering white-collar crime
spree. RYAN COOPER
“The Obama/Biden was the most corrupt, criminal
administration any of us has ever seen, yet the
media cheered or covered up all the abuse of
power, obstruction of Justice and other
crimes. “ JACK HELLNER
During his presidency, Obama bragged that his
administration was “the only thing between [Wall Street] and the
pitchforks.”
In fact, Obama handed the robber barons and outright
criminals responsible for the 2008–09 financial crisis a multi-trillion-dollar
bailout. His administration oversaw the largest redistribution of wealth in
history from the bottom to the top one percent, spearheading the attack on the
living standards of teachers and autoworkers.
“This was not
because of difficulties in securing indictments or convictions. On the
contrary, Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013
that the Obama administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their CEOs
because to do so might “have a negative impact on the national economy.”
Report documents criminality and corruption at
heart of global banking system
22 September 2020
An
explosive report published Sunday by BuzzFeed News documents
the role that major US and international banks knowingly play in laundering and
circulating trillions of dollars in dirty money from terrorist organizations,
drug cartels and assorted international financial criminals.
The
report is an unanswerable indictment not only of the banks, but also of Western
governments and regulatory agencies, which are fully aware of the banks’
illegal but highly lucrative activities and tacitly sanction them.
BuzzFeed writes that its
investigation demonstrates “an underlying truth of the modern era: The networks
through which dirty money traverses the world have become vital arteries of the
global economy. They enable a shadow financial system so wide-ranging and so
unchecked that it has become inextricable from the so-called legitimate
economy. Banks with household names have helped to make it so.”
The report continues: “Profits from deadly drug wars,
fortunes embezzled from developing countries, and hard-earned savings stolen in
a Ponzi scheme were all allowed to flow into and out of these financial
institutions, despite warnings from the banks’ own employees.
“Money
laundering is a crime that makes other crimes possible. It can accelerate
economic inequality, drain public funds, undermine democracy, and destabilize
nations—and the banks play a key role. ‘Some of these people in crisp white
shirts in their sharp suits are feeding off the tragedy of people dying all
over the world,’ said Martin Woods, a former suspicious transactions
investigator for Wachovia.’”
The
report goes on to explain that “even after they were prosecuted or fined for
financial misconduct, banks such as JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered,
Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon continued to move money for suspected
criminals.”
The
extensive report is based on more than 21,000 “suspicious activity reports”
(SARs) filed by some of the world’s biggest banks with the US Treasury
Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, between 1999 and
2017. FinCEN makes its database of SARs available to more than 450 law
enforcement and regulatory agencies across the United States.
What BuzzFeed calls
the “FinCEN Files” were leaked to the news outlet more than a year ago. It has
since been combing through them, in collaboration with the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which coauthored the report.
BuzzFeed
News notes
that it also shared the SARs with more than 100 other news organizations in 88
countries. The report, titled “Dirty Money Pours into the World’s Most Powerful
Banks,” includes only a small and redacted sample of the news outlet’s hoard of
suspicious activity reports.
The US
government maintains a policy of total secrecy in relation to the SARs,
refusing to release them even in response to Freedom of Information requests.
Earlier this year, the Treasury Department issued a statement declaring that
the unauthorized disclosure of SARs is a crime. In an obvious attempt at
intimidation and threat of prosecution, the statement added that the matter was
being referred to the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department’s
Office of Inspector General.
The initial
response of the American corporate media has been to bury or entirely ignore
the BuzzFeed revelations. Monday’s print edition of
the New York Times carried a report on page eight of its
business section. The print editions of the Washington Post and
the Wall Street Journal made no mention of the exposé.
The report
is based on more than 22,000 pages of documents concerning over 10,000 subjects
and involving more than 170 countries and territories. Nearly 90 banks and
other financial institutions are included in the institutions that submitted
the SARs.
Deutsche
Bank recorded the highest total value of transactions listed in the FinCEN
Files: $1.3 trillion, based on 982 suspicious activity reports.
BLOG EDITOR: THE CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION OF WELLS
FARGO HAS LONG OWNED THE OLD WHORE FEINSTEIN AND NOW KAMALA HARRIS. AS ATTORNEY
GENERAL OF CA, HARRIS MADE SURE NO WELLS FARGO EXECS WENT TO PRISON DESPITE THE
MASSIVE ECONOMIC DEVASTATION THIS BANK CAUSED. WELLS FARGO HAS CONTINUE TO BE A
CRIME TIDAL WAVE EVER SINCE. AFTER ALL, IT’S EASY AND CHEAP TO BUY A POLITICIAN.
The other
banks on the top 10 list are JPMorgan Chase (whose CEO Jamie Dimon was once
known as Obama's "favorite banker"), New York Mellon, Standard
Chartered, Barclays, HSBC, Bank of China, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and
Citibank.
One report,
filed by JPMorgan in August, 2014, lists over $355 billion in suspicious
activity relating to more than 100,000 wire transfers “sent, received or
transferred” over the course of a decade by MKS, a Swiss-based company that
trades in precious metals.
At least 25
of the people named as subjects in the SARs have appeared on Forbes ’
list of billionaires in 2018, 2019 or 2020.
The findings
featured in the BuzzFeed report include:
● Standard Chartered moved money on behalf of Al Zarooni
Exchange, a Dubai-based business that was later accused of laundering cash on
behalf of the Taliban.
● HSBC’s Hong Kong branch allowed WCM777, a Ponzi scheme,
to move more than $15 million even as the business was being barred from
operating in three states. Authorities say the scheme stole some $80 million
from investors, mainly Latino and Asian immigrants. The firm’s owner used the
funds to buy two golf courses, a mansion, a 39.8-carat diamond and mining
rights in Sierra Leone.
● Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, American
Express and other financial firms processed millions of dollars in transactions
for Viktor Khrapunov, the former mayor of Kazakhstan’s most populous city, even
after Interpol issued an order for his arrest. Khrapunov fled to Switzerland
and was later convicted in absentia on charges including bribe-taking and
defrauding the city.
A
separate piece by NBC News presents evidence that JPMorgan, Bank of New York
Mellon and other banks helped move more than $150 million for companies tied to
the North Korean regime.
In other
words, the biggest US and international banks have made countless millions in
profits serving as money-launderers for organizations labeled
"terrorist" such as the Taliban and governments of so-called “rogue
states” such as North Korea—with the knowledge and tacit approval of the
governments of the US and other major powers—even as these same governments
were waging or threatening war against the targeted organizations and overseas
regimes.
The BuzzFeed report
describes the cynical rationale behind the formality of banks filing SARs,
which, for the most part, are never even read by the staff of FinCEN. Over the
past decade, the number of SARs filed by major banks has sharply increased,
indicating a growth of money laundering and other illegal activities on behalf
of criminal clients. Over the same period, the staff of FinCEN has shrunk by 10
percent.
Banks are
legally required to file a SAR with FinCEN if they suspect a transaction might
be linked to illegal activity. Large banks file tens of thousands of such
reports every year. In 2017, 19 large banks filed a total of 640,000 suspicious
activity reports, according to a study by the Bank Policy Institute, a lobbying
group.
But as
the BuzzFeed report explains: “So long as a bank files a
notice that it may be facilitating criminal activity, it all but immunizes
itself and its executives from criminal prosecution. The suspicious activity
alert effectively gives them a free pass to keep moving the money and
collecting the fees.”
In its
article on the FinCEN Files report, the New York Times noted
that JPMorgan wired money to banks in Switzerland, Lebanon and Nigeria on
behalf of a convicted money launderer, reported the transactions to British and
American authorities, and continued doing business with the client. The
Nigerian government is now suing the bank in British court.
This
collusion between gangster bankers and capitalist government regulators is a
continuation of longstanding policy. In 2012, the Obama administration refused to
criminally prosecute Britain’s biggest bank, HSBC, after it acknowledged
laundering billions of dollars for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. Among
the bank’s major clients was the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, which is known for
dismembering its victims and publicly displaying their body parts.
That was in
keeping with the policy of the US government of shielding top bankers from any
accountability for illegal activities, including those that led to the collapse
of the financial system in 2008 and ushered in what at that time was the
deepest slump since the Great Depression. To this day, not a single leading
executive of a major bank has been prosecuted, let alone jailed, for fraudulent
activities that led to the destruction of millions of jobs and the decimation
of working class living standards in the US and around the world.
Here, in a
nutshell, is the modern-day aristocratic principle that prevails behind the
threadbare trappings of “democracy.” The financial robber barons of today are a
law unto themselves. They can steal, plunder, even murder at will, without fear
of being called to account. They devote a portion of their fabulous wealth to
bribing politicians, regulators, judges and police—from the heights of power in
Washington down to the local police precinct—to make sure their wealth is
protected and they remain immune from criminal prosecution.
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