Criminal bankers ‘too big to jail’

This video from the USA says about itself:

On March 8 2013, Elizabeth Warren grilled the Treasury Department about “Too Big For Jail.”

By Joseph Kishore in the USA:

Too big to jail

12 March 2013

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, US Attorney General Eric Holder made an extraordinary admission.

Responding to questioning from Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who noted that there had been no major prosecutions of financial institutions or executives by the Obama administration, Holder said: “I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them, when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute—if we do bring a criminal charge—it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy…”

In other words, major banks are so economically important that, according to Holder, it is impossible to prosecute them for criminal activity. They are above the law.

This exchange occurred during a discussion of the Justice Department’s settlement last month with British-based HSBC, the world’s third-largest bank. HSBC had been charged with laundering billions of dollars for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. In exchange for avoiding charges, HSBC agreed to pay $1.9 billion, or roughly two months’ profits. Top US officials explicitly vetoed any criminal charges, even on lesser counts than money laundering.

HSBC is only the latest bank to have received a free pass. Earlier this year, ten financial firms agreed to pay $3.3 billion in cash to settle charges of mortgage fraud: amid the housing market collapse, they had employees fraudulently sign off on thousands of mortgage foreclosures a month.

Last year, the government ended an investigation into Goldman Sachs without charges over its promotion of mortgage-backed securities at the height of the speculative bubble—even as Goldman Sachs bet against the assets itself.

In 2010, the Obama administration reached a settlement with Wachovia Bank on similar charges as those brought against HSBC: laundering billions of dollars of drug money, in this case for the Sinaloa Cartel. The fine was $160 million, less than 2 percent of the previous year’s profits.

Many similar arrangements could be cited. In each case, a check is signed—if there is any punishment at all—and business goes on as usual. Whatever money the financial institutions lose is more than balanced by their take of the $85 billion funneled into the markets every month by the US Federal Reserve.

Bernard Madoff, who admitted in 2009 to running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, told media outlets this week that the government-appointed trustee for his firm’s investors is refusing to act on evidence showing the complicity of major banks in his activities: here.

Related articles

• Holder admits some banks ‘too big to jail’ (wnd.com)
• Wall Street Banks: Too Big to Fail, Too Big To Jail (rinf.com)
• Elizabeth Warren Wants HSBC Bankers Jailed, Regulators Have Ties to Bank (news.firedoglake.com)
• VIDEO – Eric Holder Questioned On Too Big To Jail (dailybail.com)
• Too Big to Jail? (pubcit.typepad.com)
• Stefanie Ostfeld: Congress Must End ‘Too Big to Jail’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• Warren Hits Back Against ‘Too Big to Jail’ Banks (wealthwire.com)

Economic crisis, but not for rich Britons

This video from Britain says about itself:

HSBC Laundered Billions In Cartel Cash And Got Away With It

Jan 9, 2013

HSBC, the world’s third largest bank and its 6th largest company, has paid a record $1.92 billion settlement after U.S. investigators found that it spent years committing serious crimes involving money laundering for Mexican drug cartels, moving tainted money for Saudi banks tied to terrorist groups and for nations like Iran. Those investigations even uncovered substantial evidence “that senior bank officials were complicit in the illegal activity.”

Shameless HSBC bank bosses posted profits today of £13.7 billion – at the same time as launching an attack on their workers’ pension scheme: here.

By Paddy McGuffin in Britain:

Top bosses laughing all the way to the bank

Monday 04 March 2013

Directors’ pay at FTSE 100 firms soared last year, growing up to seven times faster than the average worker’s wages.

Researchers at Incomes Data Services said that while millions of ordinary people are suffering on ever-shrinking salaries, the bosses of Britain’s top companies were raking in the cash.

Non-executive chairmen saw their pay rise by 6 per cent on average last year, taking home nearly £400,000 each.

Their fees ranged from an average of £270,000 in technology firms to over half a million pounds at oil and gas companies.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said it showed that “we need urgent reform of boardroom pay.

“Top directors are showing little restraint while millions of workers are suffering real-term losses to their incomes and are really feeling the squeeze on their living standards.”

And ordinary directors still managed to get their hands on £64,000 – a 4 per cent increase on 2011 and double what they charged in 2000.

Meanwhile the chairmen of company remuneration committees – the people who set the pay for executives – snagged an eye-watering 14 per cent increase.

Ms O’Grady said that “these bumper settlements bear little relation to performance” and it showed the need for workers to sit on pay committees.

The figures were published as reports surfaced that HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver will receive a £2 million bonus as part of a total package reportedly worth up to £7m for 2012.

But while company chiefs filled their boots research by the Labour Party showed that British workers had taken a huge hit to their pay packets.

Real wages – pay minus inflation – fell by 3.2 per cent between the third quarter of 2010 and the third quarter of 2012, the same as in Portugal.

Among the 27 EU member states, only the Netherlands, Cyprus and Greece suffered greater drops.

By Rory MacKinnon in Britain:

Disabled left £10 worse off a week

Monday 04 March 2013

“Perverse” housing benefit cuts will strip disabled tenants of more than £10 a week even after stop-gap payments, housing associations have warned.

The National Housing Federation poured scorn on the coalition’s bedroom tax yesterday as it showed discretionary council top-ups for disabled people will fail to cover even a fifth of the average shortfall.

The federation called on the government to repeal the “ill-conceived” bedroom tax or “at the very least” exempt disabled and other vulnerable people.

From April the bedroom tax will see housing benefits rationed out even more meagrely, with a 14 per cent benefit cut for any tenant with a spare bedroom.

Chancellor George Osborne’s Funding For Lending hand outs are mostly just funding banks’ shareholders, official figures showed today: here.

Related articles

• £2m windfall for HSBC boss Stuart Gulliver despite fine (metro.co.uk)
• HSBC Annual Profit Falls on Money-Laundering Charges (dealbook.nytimes.com)
• HSBC reports $20bn profit despite fine (metro.co.uk)
• HSBC pays 78 City bankers £1m after fine for money laundering (standard.co.uk)
• HSBC chief set to earn £8m bonus (express.co.uk)

HSBC bank in new crime scandal

This video is called HSBC in court again after found guilty of money laundering.

A video from Britain, no longer on YouTube, used to say about itself:

HSBC · Drug Dealers, Gun Runners, Slaves & Money Laundering · David Cameron‘s Ancestral Legacy

Nov 9, 2012

Britain’s biggest bank is at the centre of a major HM Revenue and Customs investigation after it opened offshore accounts in Jersey for serious criminals living in this country, The Telegraph can disclose.

From daily News Line in Britain:

Saturday, 10 November 2012

HSBC new ‘dirty money’ laundering allegations

THE HSBC bank, the biggest bank in Europe, says it is looking into allegations that it has set up a large number of offshore accounts in Jersey for criminal gangs to launder ‘dirty’ money’, the profits made from drugs and people trafficking.

HSBC bank has just put aside a further $800m (£500m) to cover potential money-laundering fines in the US.

The bank had already put aside $700m after a US Senate report published in July said lax controls had left it vulnerable to money laundering.

Mexican regulators had earlier imposed a fine of $27.5m (£17.7m) on the banking giant for its failure to comply with money-laundering regulations.

Just before that fine was imposed, HSBC’s chief compliance officer resigned over allegations that the bank ignored warnings that Mexican drug money was being allowed to pass through the bank.
The fine is the highest ever imposed by Mexican regulators.

It constitutes 51.5% of the 2011 annual profit of HSBC’s Mexican subsidiary.

Mexico’s National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) said it had imposed the fine against HSBC due to its ‘non-compliance with anti-money laundering systems and controls’.

HSBC Mexico issued a statement acknowledging that it failed to report 39 suspicious transactions and had been late in reporting 1,729 others.

‘HSBC Mexico recognises it failed to strictly comply with banking regulations, and with the standards that regulators and clients expect of our institution,’ it said.

Earlier, a United States Senate committee found that HSBC had provided a conduit for ‘drug kingpins and rogue nations’.

After all this – now come the Jersey allegations.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the tax authorities have obtained details of ‘every British client of HSBC in Jersey’ based on information provided by a whistle-blower.

It has been reported that the 4,000 offshore account holders include a well-known drug dealer living in Central America, bankers who face allegations of fraud and a man once dubbed London’s ‘number two crook’.

The US Senate report alleged that staff at HSBC’s global operations had laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels and terrorists in a ‘pervasively polluted’ culture that persisted for years.

The report detailed how HSBC’s subsidiaries cleared suspicious travellers’ cheques worth billions, and allowed Mexican drug lords to buy planes with money laundered through Cayman Islands accounts.

HSBC is one of the banks that the working people of the world are being forced to prop up with trillions of dollars and pounds through the various austerity programmes that are under way, as well as tens of millions of workers losing their jobs, and their pensions, and tens of millions of young people are having their futures sacrificed for.

Capitalism is renowned as the operation of the ‘law of the jungle’, the survival of the fittest, as far as human society is concerned.

Now we have been shown, once again, that at its pinnacle there are groups of bankers who dominate the capitalist world economy, and are the envy of all those who want to get rich under capitalism, who are engaged in criminal activities, even by the standards of bourgeois law. In fact, where the criminal world ends and their world of super-exploitation begins is blurred, to say the least.

Rogue bank HSBC said today that it will pay $1.9 billion (£1.18bn) to buy its way out of a US government money-laundering probe: here. And here.

HSBC faces more tax evasion claims: here.

A parliamentary report released April 5 on the collapse of HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) points to acts of criminality and corruption that go well beyond one financial institution: here.

Related articles

• HSBC to probe ‘criminal’ accounts (bbc.co.uk)
• UK to probe HSBC accounts allegedly used by criminals (thehindu.com)
• HSBC investigated by Jersey regulators (guardian.co.uk)
• Britain Opens Inquiry on HSBC Over Tax Haven (dealbook.nytimes.com)
• HSBC ‘investigated for money laundering in Jersey’ (itv.com)
• VIDEO: ‘Criminal’ accounts probed by HSBC (bbc.co.uk)
• Elizabeth Warren Demands Jail for HSBC ‘Money Launderers’ (jhaines6.wordpress.com)
• HSBC faces new money laundering claims in Argentina (standard.co.uk)
• HSBC in new money laundering claims (bbc.co.uk)
• Elizabeth Warren Wants HSBC Bankers Jailed, Regulators Have Ties to Bank (news.firedoglake.com)

Greek general strike today, tomorrow

From daily News Line in Britain:

Tuesday, 6 November 2012

LAST week the two main Greek trade union organisations representing workers in the public and private sector called a two-day general strike starting today against the new austerity measures being voted on by the Greek parliament tomorrow.

Even before the official strike began, workers in public transport and the media kicked off the strike by walking out yesterday in advance of the official action.

The driving force for this massive mobilisation of workers, small shopkeepers and the poor, is the debate being held this week in the Greek parliament on whether to accept the new round of ‘austerity’ measures being demanded by the Troika – the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF – who are determined to screw every penny of the Greek debt out of the very blood of the Greek people.

What the unelected prime minister, Antonis Samaras, will be pleading with MPs to pass on Wednesday is a bill that agrees to implement a further round of cuts amounting to 18 billion euros.

Acceptance and implementation of these cuts is a condition of Greece getting the next loan from the international banks of 31.5 billion euros.

Failure to secure this bail-out will mean that Greece will be completely bankrupt by mid-November.

If Greece is declared bankrupt it will be ejected from the eurozone and the consequences for the international capitalist banking system will be disastrous, leading to a spectacular banking collapse that will bring down the entire system.

This was spelt out yesterday by the HSBC.

In their interim report for the third quarter of 2012 they warned that there is an ‘increased’ risk of a country leaving the eurozone, and admitted that it cannot accurately assess how this will impact on the bank.

In a section called ‘Redenomination risk’ HSBC state: ‘As a result of the continuing distressed conditions experienced by the peripheral eurozone countries, there is an increased possibility of a member state exiting from the eurozone.

‘There is currently no established legal framework within the eurozone and it is not possible to accurately predict the course of events and legal consequences that would ensue. Our current view is that there would be a greater impact on HSBC from a euro exit of Greece, Italy or Spain than from Ireland, Portugal or Cyprus, where our exposures are substantially lower.’

Translated into plain English this means that the biggest bank in Europe is up to its neck in the Greek debt and faces collapse if the Troika is unable to push through cuts that will drive the Greek working class into the ground.

Already, austerity measures imposed on Greece last year have resulted in the highest rates of unemployment in Europe – with youth unemployment running at 50%, while workers’ pay has been cut, wages unpaid, the mass privatisation of the public sector and the almost complete destruction of the country’s health service.

In July 2011 Greek politicians signed up to a supplementary loan agreement with international lenders that stipulated that workers losing their jobs are forced to meet the full cost of health.

This has led to a situation where hospitals and pharmacies are now demanding cash payment from the unemployed before giving treatment or issuing drugs.

This is capitalist barbarism in action and it will not stop there.

Part of the new bail-out condition is yet further cuts to the health budget of over a billion euros.

BBC strike report: here.

GreekReporter.com report: here.

Morning Star report: here. And here.

Socialist Worker report: here.

Report by Christoph Dreier: here.

Related articles

• Greek strike shuts down country (cnn.com)
• Big fat Greek strike: MPs and govt say no escaping austerity (rt.com)
• Greeks start wave of strikes against latest axe proposal (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• Greece Paralyzed By 48-Hr General Strike Over Austerity Plan (forexlive.com)
• Greece Readies for Vote as General Strike Begins (bloomberg.com)
• Greece faces shut-down amid massive strikes (aljazeera.com)

HSBC banksters want to kick out Occupy Hong Kong

This video is called Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central” Protest.

That the giant HSBC bank has helped drug gangsters and al-Qaida terrorists is not the only reason why they are in the news.

Today, from daily The Morning Star in Britain:

HSBC wins court bid to kick out Occupy activists in Hong Kong

Monday 13 August 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

Banking giant HSBC won a legal bid today to clear out anti-capitalist protesters from a public space below the bank‘s Asian headquarters in Hong Kong.

A judge ruled that the activists must leave by 9pm on August 27.

Occupy protesters have been living under the bank’s headquarters since October last year, when protesters in Hong Kong joined others around the world in demonstrating against corporate excess and economic inequality.

About a dozen activists are still living in the large open space on the ground floor of the HSBC building which was occupied by more than 200 protesters at the height of the movement.

The activists have made themselves at home by setting up tents, tables, sofas and chairs, bookcases, lamps and gas cookers.

They have outlasted many other Occupy encampments around the world that have been shut down by authorities and their members have vowed not to budge.

“We’ve never asked for permission from the law, we’ve never asked for permission from the courts, we’ve never asked for permission from HSBC,” said Occupy activist Nin Chan.

“From the very beginning we’ve never recognised these authorities as legitimate.”

While HSBC owns the land, it’s legally designated as a public passageway.

The judge ruled that the activists’ use of the space goes beyond the land’s designated use.

Bailiffs clear out Hong Kong Occupy camp: here.

Scandals emerging from the financial services industry on an almost daily basis point to the ongoing criminal practices of British banks. They expose the complicity of the regulators—the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Bank of England (BoE), who famously practice “light touch” regulation—and successive governments that function as the advocates and protectors of these financial gangsters: here.

On August 6, police forcibly evicted Occupy protesters in front of the headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt-Main: here.

On August 9, the US Justice Department announced it was ending a criminal investigation into allegations that Goldman Sachs committed securities fraud in its underwriting and marketing of mortgage-backed securities in the months leading up to the Wall Street crash of September 2008. The department said it would not file charges against the bank or any of its employees: here.

HSBC bankers helped drug gangsters, al-Qaida

This video is called HSBC Allegedly Allowed Money Laundering Through U.S. System.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

HSBC ‘sorry’ for aiding Mexican drugs lords, rogue states and terrorists

Executive quits in front of US Senate as bank faces massive fines for ‘horrific’ lapses that resulted in laundering money for drugs cartels and pariah states

Dominic Rushe in New York

Tuesday 17 July 2012 18.29 BST

Executives with Europe’s biggest bank, HSBC, were subjected to a humiliating onslaught from US senators on Tuesday over revelations that staff at its global subsidiaries laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels, terrorists and pariah states.

Lawmakers hammered the British-based bank over the scandal, demanding to know how and why its affiliates had exposed it to the proceeds of drug trafficking and terrorist financing in a “pervasively polluted” culture that persisted for years.

A report compiled for the committee detailed how HSBC’s subsidiaries transported billions of dollars of cash in armoured vehicles, cleared suspicious travellers’ cheques worth billions, and allowed Mexican drug lords buy to planes with money laundered through Cayman Islands accounts.

Other subsidiaries moved money from Iran, Syria and other countries on US sanctions lists, and helped a Saudi bank linked to al-Qaida to shift money to the US.

David Bagley, HSBC’s head of compliance since 2002, and who had worked with the bank for more than 20 years, resigned before the committee.

“Despite the best efforts and intentions of many dedicated professionals, HSBC has fallen short of our own expectations and the expectations of our regulators,” he said.

The bank has been under investigation for nearly a decade, and faces a massive fine from the US justice department for lapses in its safeguards. Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn, who conducted the hearing, said the permanent subcommittee of investigations had examined 1.4m documents as part of its review and thanked the bank for its co-operation.

…

The committee had released a damning report on Monday, which detailed a collapse in HSBC’s compliance standards. The report showed executives at the bank has consistently warned of problems. At its Mexican subsidiary, one executive had warned the bank was “rubber-stamping unacceptable risks”, according to one email gathered by the committee.

HSBC’s Mexican operations moved $7bn into the bank’s US operations, and according to its own staff, much of that money was tied to drug traffickers. Before the bank executives testified, the committee heard from Leigh Winchell, assistant director for investigative programs at US immigration & customs enforcement. He said 47,000 people had lost their lives since 2006 as a result of Mexican drug traffickers.

The senators highlighted testimony from Leopoldo Barroso, a former HSBC anti money-laundering director, who told company officials in an exit interview that he was concerned about “allegations of 60% to 70% of laundered proceeds in Mexico” going through HSBC’s affiliate.

“In hindsight,” said Bagley, “I think we all sometimes allowed a focus on what was lawful and compliant rather than what should have been best practices.”

Levin and Coburn directed particular ire at a Cayman Islands subsidiary set up by the Mexico division of HSBC. That bank handled 50,000 client accounts and $2.1bn in holdings, but had no staff or offices. Money from the Cayman Islands was used to buy planes for Mexican drug traffickers, said the senators. Bagley said those accounts were all now in the process of being closed.

“Forget hindsight,” said Levin. “Is there any way that should have been allowed to happen?”

“No, senator,” said Thurston.

Levin repeatedly said that HSBC must have been aware of the problems. “This is something that people knew was going on at the bank,” he said.

…

HSBC executives continued to so business with Al Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia, even after it emerged that its owners had links to organizations financing terrorism and that one of the bank’s founders was an early financial benefactor of al-Qaida.

While Coburn was unsparing of his criticism of HSBC, he thanked the bank for its co-operation and said there were issues at other institutions including Citigroup, Wachovia and Western Union.

But the report comes at a highly sensitive moment for British banks in the US. Following Barclays fine in the Libor-interest rate scandal and the massive losses at JP Morgan Chase‘s London offices US politicians have become increasingly critical of the UK’s financial services sector.

At a recent hearing into the JP Morgan losses, Carolyn Maloney, a Democratic representative from New York, said: “It seems to be that every big trading disaster happens in London.”

See also here.

HSBC chief Bagley resigns over dirty money scandal: here.

The HSBC Scandal Shows the Time for Politicians to Act on Bank Reform Is Now: here.

Police shootings raise questions over CIA role in Mexico: here.