Image source:http://blog.optionsclick.com/2012/07/17/weak-sales-data-adds-pressure-on-fed-reserve/
HSBC agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement with U.S authorities over charges that it laundered billions of dollars tied to Latin American drug cartel, so called “rogue states,” and foreign terrorist organizations. The U.S Department of Justice wanted to make a show of the massive money-laundering settlements, in order to warn other banks not to make the same mistake as HSBC. As shown in the chart, there are several major settlements with money-laundering banks.
However, U.S authorities have cowered from actually prosecuting these massive crimes shows how illicit financial flows remain a strutural pillar of the global capitalist system. Moreover, they feared “criminal prosecution would topple the bank and, in the process, endanger the financial system” according to the New York Times. These might ripple across the world financial system.
HSBC had “failed to monitor over $670 billion in wire transfers from HSBC Mexico between 2006 and 2009, and failed to monitor over $9.4 billion in purchases of physical U.S. dollars from HSBC Mexico over that same period.” In Newspeak, “failed to monitor” stands in for “complicity.”
Sources:
Ballvé, Teo. “Narco-Geographies, Part I: HSBC and Global Money Laundering.” Territorial Masquerades . n. page. Web. 2 May. 2013. <http://territorialmasquerades.net/narco-geographies-part-i-hsbc-and-global-money-laundering/>
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