JOE BIDEN AND RED CHINA…. Has ol’ Joe served them more than Senator Dianne Feinstein?
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2020/12/joe-biden-i-saw-how-much-sen-dianne.html
The segment ends with an assertion that Joe Biden has been compromised, and that’s exactly correct. There hasn’t been a more China-friendly politician in the last 30 years than Biden. TUCKER CARLSON
SHE HAS AVOIDED PROSECUTION BY VOTING AGAINST ANY ETHICS BILLS AND HER HUSBAND, RICHARD BLUM'S HANDING OUT "CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION" BRIBES TO EVERY DEMOCRAT OUT THERE!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/07/she-ranks-as-one-of-most-corrupt-and.html
IN THE November 2006 election, the voters demanded congressional ethics reform. And so, the newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own ethical conflict of interest, say congressional ethics experts.
“All in all, it was an incredible victory for the Chinese government. Feinstein has done more for Red China than other any serving U.S. politician. “ Trevor Loudon
After Feinstein was elected to the Senate in 1992, Blum continued profiting off their ties to China. A the same time, the freshman lawmaker was pitching herself as a “China hand” to colleagues, even once claiming “that in my last life maybe I was Chinese.” HARIS ALIC
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER.com
“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.”
Chinese Intermediaries Launder Cartels' Drug Proceeds in the United States
From the U.S. to China to the cartels
In a post last week on drugs and the border, I referenced the following quote from the DEA: "Due to China's currency control restrictions, Asian TCOs [transnational criminal organizations] have taken advantage of the availability of U.S. dollars belonging to Mexican and Colombian TCOs in the United States by acquiring the U.S. dollars in exchange for the payment of Colombian/Mexican pesos in the respective drug source country." A recent federal court conviction in Chicago and a Reuters article on that case explain how the scheme works, at least on a small scale.
The DOJ press release on that case explains that one "Xianbing Gan" was convicted on three counts of money laundering and one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, in a scheme to move drug proceeds from the Windy City to China, and then on to drug traffickers in Mexico.
Reuters fleshes out the scheme. Moving vast sums of illicit drug money out of the United States is a difficult — and for the perpetrators, dangerous — task, as the article explains:
The only thing tougher than moving illegal drugs across borders is getting the profits back to Mexico's cartels, U.S. officials said. Cash is heavy, and transporting it exposes traffickers to lots of risk. Putting it into the banking system is perilous, too. The U.S. and Mexican financial systems have been geared to detect dirty money.
The scheme described bypassed all of those impediments. Gan's case was premised on the testimony of one of his conspirators, a Singapore national working out of New York named Lim Seok Pheng, who became a cooperating witness for the government after she was arrested in May 2018 at JFK on suspicion of laundering money.
Lim would collect vast sums of cash (between $150,000 and $1 million at a clip) from contacts in the cartels in New York and Chicago (as well as other cities, apparently), using burner phones and contact information. She would then work with U.S.-based Chinese merchants to convert the money to yuan in banks in China in real time. Lim would hand the merchants the cash, and they would transfer the money from their accounts in China to Gan's account in that country.
Why would those merchants be willing to do this? The Chinese government limits the amount of cash that its citizens can transfer out of the country to $50,000 per year, but authorities in that country would (likely) think that there was nothing amiss in transfers between two bank accounts in China. Oh, and the merchants got a premium on the money that they transferred, but there is no evidence that they were aware of the provenance of the cash they received.
To get the money from China to Mexico, Gan allegedly would then engage in the same sort of transfer on the southern side of the border. Cash would be transferred from Gan's account to those of Chinese merchants with access to pesos in Mexico.
Gan (who ran a seafood business out of Guadalajara, Mexico, exporting jellyfish to China) contends that he was a patsy for another Chinese national named Pan Haiping, who duped him into using his Chinese account to launder the money. Haiping is in custody in Mexico awaiting extradition to the United States on money laundering charges (using Gan's and other Chinese bank accounts) handed down by a grand jury in March 2019. According to U.S. authorities, the laundered money was then transferred to Mexican drug cartels.
Reuters reports that Chinese money brokers in Mexico have avoided the conflicts amongst the cartels themselves, and have (according to an unnamed DEA agent) "coordinat[ed] money contracts with both the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels on the same day" — no mean feat.
If all of this sounds familiar, it is akin to a "hawala" scheme, in which (overly simply) money is paid to a broker in the United States (a "hawaladar"), and a similar amount in local funds is provided to another individual abroad.
As the Treasury Department and INTERPOL have explained, hawalas are cost-effective (much more so than converting dollars into the local currency and then having it delivered abroad), efficient (taking one to two days — at most), reliable, avoid bureaucracy, and largely untaxable. Best of all — from the prospective of a drug TCO — hawalas leave no paper trail.
Hawalas came to the fore in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (the "9/11 Commission") explained:
Al Qaeda frequently moved the money it raised by hawala. ... In some ways, al Qaeda had no choice after its move to Afghanistan in 1996: first, the banking system there was antiquated and undependable; and second, formal banking was risky due to the scrutiny that al Qaeda received after the August 1998 East Africa embassy bombings, including UN resolutions against it and the Taliban. Bin Ladin relied on the established hawala networks operating in Pakistan, in Dubai, and throughout the Middle East to transfer funds efficiently.
Note that hawalas and other similar informal schemes rely on "trust" between the remitter and the hawaladar, but the drug scheme described did not necessarily require such an archaic notion. To the degree that any trust was involved: (1) the scheme was lucrative for all involved, and they would necessarily have an interest in its viability; and (2) Mexican TCOs have their own means of ensuring compliance.
Interestingly, as per Reuters, such Chinese money launderers are undercutting their Mexican and Colombian competition by as much as half, because they can charge big fees (up to 10 percent) on Chinese nationals who are seeking to avoid that country's restrictive currency controls. This, in turn, "allows the Chinese money brokers ... to charge traffickers nominal fees of just a few percentage points. The money launderers still turn a handsome profit while locking in a steady supply of coveted dollars and euros from cartel customers."
The money is good. Lim, in her 2019 plea agreement on money laundering, admitted that she laundered approximately $48 million in drug cash with Gan and Pan Haiping from 2016 to September 2017, taking (according to the government) a .5 percent commission (or in the neighborhood of $240,000; Gan was convicted of laundering more than $530,000 in cartel cash).
Nor were they alone. Charges are pending in Virginia and Oregon against two other alleged Chinese money laundering groups.
That said, Reuters reports that this is not the only method that Mexican cartels use to launder their money, sometimes opting for "trade-based money laundering schemes". For example, that outlet explains that Mexico's Financial Intelligence Unit said publicly in July that Chinese nationals who were laundering money for the Jalisco New Generation cartel used drug proceeds in order to buy bulk orders of shoes from China, which they would then resell in Mexico to get cash.
In any event, cartel money laundering by Chinese rings is a big problem for law enforcement. There is little or no visibility into the Chinese banking system for outsiders (the article describes the country as "a veritable black hole for U.S. and Mexican authorities", although the Chinese government contends it is willing to help, while "stress[ing] the need for the two countries to work on the 'principle of respecting each other's laws, equality and mutual benefit'"), and the sentencing memorandum in Gan's case (cited by Reuters) suggests that "Chinese money brokers based in Mexico 'have come to dominate international money laundering markets'".
Growing Chinese expat communities in the United States and Mexico — desperate to access their money back home — and cartels sitting on piles of dollars from illicit drug sales in the United States are creating opportunities for themselves. And problems for law enforcement.
WAVE AFTER WAVE AFTER WAVE OF BANKSTER CRIMES AND THEN BAILOUTS. NONE GO TO PRISON! WHO PAYS FOR THEIR CRIME TIDAL WAVES???
Bank Shares Slide on Reports of Rampant Money Laundering
Shares of some major banks are tumbling before the market open Monday following a report alleging those including JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon continued to profit from illicit dealings with disreputable people and criminal networks despite being previously fined for similar actions.
According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, leaked government documents show that the banks continued moving illicit funds even after U.S. officials warned they’d face criminal prosecutions if they didn’t stop doing business with mobsters, fraudsters or corrupt regimes.
The consortium says the documents indicate that JPMorgan moved money for people and companies tied to the massive looting of public funds in Malaysia, Venezuela, and the Ukraine. The bank also processed more than $50 million in payments over a decade for Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, according to the documents, which are known as the FinCEN Files.
JPMorgan’s stock declined 4.4 percent in premarket trading.
The consortium’s investigation found the documents identify more than $2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017 that were flagged by financial institutions’ internal compliance officers as possible money laundering or other criminal activity — including $514 billion at JPMorgan and $1.3 trillion at Deutsche Bank. Shares of Deutsche Bank dropped 7.7 percent.
JAMIE DIMON - STILL ON THE LAM. PROBABLY HOLED UP WITH THE OBOMB!
Bank Shares Slide on Reports of Rampant Money Laundering
21 Sep 20208
Shares of some major banks are tumbling
before the market open Monday following a
report alleging those including JPMorgan,
HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche
Bank and Bank of New York Mellon continued
to profit from illicit dealings with disreputable
people and criminal networks despite being
previously fined for similar actions.
According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, leaked government documents show that the banks continued moving illicit funds even after U.S. officials warned they’d face criminal prosecutions if they didn’t stop doing business with mobsters, fraudsters or corrupt regimes.
The consortium says the documents indicate that JPMorgan moved money for people and companies tied to the massive looting of public funds in Malaysia, Venezuela, and the Ukraine. The bank also processed more than $50 million in payments over a decade for Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, according to the documents, which are known as the FinCEN Files.
JPMorgan’s stock declined 4.4 percent in premarket trading.
The consortium’s investigation found the documents identify more than $2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017 that were flagged by financial institutions’ internal compliance officers as possible money laundering or other criminal activity — including $514 billion at JPMorgan and $1.3 trillion at Deutsche Bank. Shares of Deutsche Bank dropped 7.7 percent.
Report: Chinese Companies Helped North Korea Launder Money Through U.S. Banks
Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP
21 Sep 202049
3:37
North Korea moved nearly $175 million through prominent U.S. banks in recent years in a money-laundering scheme that used shell companies and help from Chinese companies, according to confidential bank documents reviewed by NBC News in a report published Sunday.
For several years, the international community has imposed sanctions on North Korea to deprive the nation of financial resources that could contribute to its rogue nuclear program. Some of the sanctions specifically target money transfers to block Pyongyang’s access to the global financial system. Despite the sanctions, North Korea has managed to move funds across international borders in recent years, according to the report.
“The suspected laundering by North Korea-linked organizations amounted to more than $174.8 million over several years, with transactions cleared through U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase and the Bank of New York Mellon,” the report claimed.
According to the documents, “Wire transfers from North Korean-linked companies with opaque ownership sometimes came in bursts, only days or hours apart, and the amounts … transferred were in round figures with no clear commercial reasons for the transactions.” The suspicious details of the wire transfers are considered red flags of attempts to move illicit funds.
A suspicious activity report filed by the Bank of New York Mellon shows that Ma Xiaohong, the chief of Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Corp. in Dandong, a Chinese city on the North Korean border, allegedly funneled resources to North Korea.
“Ma and Dandong Hongxiang routed money to North Korea through China, Singapore, Cambodia, the U.S. and elsewhere, using an array of shell companies to move tens of millions of dollars through U.S. banks in New York,” according to the documents.
“One transaction in 2009 featured a Singapore shipping concern called United Green Pte. Ltd., whose directors included Leonard Lai,” a man sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2015, along with his Singaporean company, Senat Shipping Ltd., “for their links to a North Korean shipping company that was alleged to have tried to move weapons from Cuba to North Korea,” according to the report. The 2015 sanctions remain in place.
In 2015, New York Mellon reported handling “suspicious transfers of $85.6 million.” The document seen by NBC “details $20.1 million of those transactions.” In 2016 and 2019, U.S. authorities indicted Ma and other Dandong Hongxiang executives on charges of money laundering and helping North Korea evade international sanctions. So far, “no one has been extradited, and charges remain pending,” according to the report.
The leaked bank documents seen by NBC were obtained by BuzzFeed as part of a collaborative project with over 400 other journalistic agencies around the world.
“The project examined a cache of secret suspicious activity reports filed by banks with the [U.S.] Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, as well as other investigative documents,” the report claimed. The documents span a time period from 2008 to 2017, during which both the Obama and Trump administrations worked to tighten financial sanctions against North Korea in an effort to pressure the nation to denuclearize.
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
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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