Too Big to Jail: Big Banks Can Finance Terrorists and Walk Away Scot-Free

[CuteOldGuy]

This "Too Big To Fail" nonsense has to end. Here's the story:

The New York Times reports this week that megabank HSBC has escaped criminal prosecution for money laundering that probably funded terrorists and narcotics traffickers. Why? Because regulators and prosecutors were petrified that an indictment would undermine the entire financial system. The Times quotes anonymous government sources who confessed fears about bringing formal charges because doing so would be a "death sentence" for the bank. So they let it off the hook.

That’s right, HSBC is officially above the law. Too-big-to-fail has become too-big-to-prosecute.

I don't know who came up with this outrageous policy, but they need to be fired.

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/too-...away-scot-free

[i'va biggen]

Didn't they get fined a couple of Billion?

[CuteOldGuy]

As a matter of fact, Ekim, they got fined $1.9 Billion. About 5 weeks income. Here is an article for you:

If you've ever been arrested on a drug charge, if you've ever spent even a day in jail for having a stem of marijuana in your pocket or "drug paraphernalia" in your gym bag, Assistant Attorney General and longtime Bill Clinton pal Lanny Breuer has a message for you: Bite me.

Breuer this week signed off on a settlement deal with the British banking giant HSBC that is the ultimate insult to every ordinary person who's ever had his life altered by a narcotics charge. Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a "record" financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.

The banks' laundering transactions were so brazen that the NSA probably could have spotted them from space. Breuer admitted that drug dealers would sometimes come to HSBC's Mexican branches and "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."

This bears repeating: in order to more efficiently move as much illegal money as possible into the "legitimate" banking institution HSBC, drug dealers specifically designed boxes to fit through the bank's teller windows. Tony Montana's henchmen marching dufflebags of cash into the fictional "American City Bank" in Miami was actually more subtle than what the cartels were doing when they washed their cash through one of Britain's most storied financial institutions.

Now read the entire article from Rolling Stone, a far right wing magazine, and let me know if you think the fine was adequate. Thank you.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...#ixzz2EzvCx58V
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[Laz]

We should be holding the guys that made the decisions to commit the crime criminally liable. Throw them in jail and penalize the corporation so the owners will manage the company better.