HSBC 'probed for money laundering'

25 Aug 2012, 3:22 pm   -   Source: AFP
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US prosecutors are looking into whether British bank HSBC was involved in laundering money for Mexican drug cartels and for Saudi Arabian banks with ties to terrorists.

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US prosecutors are looking into whether British bank HSBC was involved in laundering money for Mexican drug cartels and moving cash for Saudi Arabian banks with ties to terrorists, The New York Times reported.
  
Citing unnamed federal authorities with direct knowledge of the investigations, the newspaper said the investigators were also probing whether HSBC circumvented US law by transferring money through its American subsidiary for sanctioned nations, including Iran, Sudan and North Korea.
  
Last month, HSBC announced that its Mexico unit had paid a fine totalling 379 million Mexican pesos ($27.5 million) to Mexico's banking regulators for breaching anti-money laundering controls.
  
Earlier, HSBC apologized and a senior executive resigned after US lawmakers accused Europe's biggest bank of giving Iran, terrorists and drug dealers access to America's financial system.
  
In a 330-page report, the US Senate found the lender allowed affiliates in countries such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh to move billions of dollars in suspect funds into the United States without adequate controls.
  
The report said HSBC's Mexican affiliate "transported $7.0 billion in physical US dollars to HBUS from 2007 to 2008... raising red flags that the volume of dollars included proceeds from illegal drug sales in the United States."
  
According to The Times, eager to resolve the investigation, HSBC reached out to federal prosecutors in July in hopes of securing a settlement by September.
  
But officials said a settlement in the next couple of weeks was highly unlikely, the paper pointed out.
 

HSBC , Money Laundering

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Your Comments

Out with the old

Deana - from Melbourne, 9 months ago

Seems every day there is at least one majorly shocking headline verifying the corruption at the core of our fractional reserve banking system. I'm surprised we voluntarily contribute to it any longer. I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to being passive in the face of such dramatic challenges, climate change, corruption in every faucet of society, peak resource usage, the list goes on and on. We have to do something...I just don't know what.... Things just have to change, fast.

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