Matt Taibbi on Elliot Spitzer: HSBC drug laundering not worth prosecuting

[upi402]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213
LOL
He made the case that a common citizen caught with a pot stem gets their house taken away and tossed in prison, yet we can't bother with HSBC laundering drug lord money for years - and getting caught red-handed!

Great!

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."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213#ixzz2EzFjwKMZ
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[upi402]

1. this is fun...

And not only did they sell out to drug dealers, they sold out cheap. You'll hear bragging this week by the Obama administration that they wrested a record penalty from HSBC, but it's a joke. Some of the penalties involved will literally make you laugh out loud. This is from Breuer's announcement:

As a result of the government's investigation, HSBC has . . . "clawed back" deferred compensation bonuses given to some of its most senior U.S. anti-money laundering and compliance officers, and agreed to partially defer bonus compensation for its most senior officials during the five-year period of the deferred prosecution agreement.

Wow. So the executives who spent a decade laundering billions of dollars will have to partially defer their bonuses during the five-year deferred prosecution agreement? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the punishment?

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213#ixzz2EzK2ruOw
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

kick

[badhair77]

2. this makes me physically ill

I feel hopeless. It just seems there is no justice.

[midnight]

3. I know.... Here in Wisconsin our Underwater mortgage relief money is being used to prosecute

People, and plug budget problems created by mismanagement...

[upi402]

4. Sad. Here's a sickening & similar bit from Matt's story...

Or we could ask Anthony Smelley, the Indiana resident who won $50,000 in a car accident settlement and was carrying about $17K of that in cash in his car when he got pulled over. Cops searched his car and had drug dogs sniff around: The dogs alerted twice. No drugs were found, but police took the money anyway. Even after Smelley produced documentation proving where he got the money from, Putnam County officials tried to keep the money on the grounds that he could have used the cash to buy drugs in the future.

Seriously, that happened.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213#ixzz2EzhL9u9j
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[midnight]

5. I'm really feed up with this purity justice tough on crime until the too rich to jail do a crime....

[badhair77]

6. Is this America?

Something is wrong here and I see very little movement to fix it.

[RainDog]

7. this is so horrid. n/t

[adirondacker]

8. Kick n/t

[Fire Walk With Me]

9. Aren't about 1/2 of the people in US jails there on drug-related charges?

[HiPointDem]

10. The 1% are massive profiteers on the drug trade through money-laundering & the war on drugs &

imo some of them are ultimately the "Mr. Bigs" at the top of the drug-dealer pyramid.

I have drug-dealers on my block -- hard drugs, not pot -- and they are not nice people. There were always drugs around here but since the recession things have gotten considerably darker, to the extent I've begun to feel that the place is being purposefully flooded with the shit.

I can't tell you what I think about this settlement and those sons-of-bitches who wantonly destroy others for a lousy dollar.

[upi402]

11. Freeway Ricky Ross - wiki

Iran-Contra involvement
Main article: CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US

Ross's capture was facilitated by his career-long dealer Oscar Danilo Blandon, who "set up" Ross. Blandón had close ties with the Contras, and had met with Contra leader Enrique Bermúdez on several occasions. Blandón was the link between the CIA and Contras during the Iran-Contra affair. Gary Webb interviewed Ross several times before breaking the story in 1996. Ross claims that the reason he was unfairly tried initially was because of his involvement in the scandal. Blandón received a 24-month sentence for his drug trafficking charges, and following his release, was hired by the Drug Enforcement Administration where he was salaried at US$42,000. Blandón was not a U.S. citizen/national, and is the only known foreigner not to be deported following conviction on drug trafficking charges in U.S. history.

The INS was ordered to grant Blandón a green card, despite the criminal convictions, to allow him to work for the DEA. The DEA has claimed they no longer employ Blandón, and his whereabouts are unknown.[9]

[jtuck004]

12. "... and all you worthless taxpayers? You are just pieces of shit". There. Fixed.

They must have cut off the rest of the headline when they posted the article.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

13. I love Matt. He's a one-man screed writing machine

His dad is your more typical everyday journalist, but I like the fervor and high quality writing od Matt