HSBC shipped billions in cash to US on behalf of Mexico's drug cartels

[xchrom]

http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/07/19/inenglish/1342701073_097490.html

British banking giant HSBC for years shipped billions of dollars in cash belonging to the Mexican drug cartels to be deposited in the United States despite warnings from banking regulators in Washington and Mexico City, according to the results of a US Senate investigation released on Monday.

The more than 400-page report compiled by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was made public on the eve of a hearing in which officials from HSBC Holdings Plc were called to before the panel to explain how the bank acted as a financier to shady clients in Mexico, Iran and Syria by routing their money to the United States.

Apologetic HSBC officials said Tuesday that they were shutting down bank affiliates in "high-risk areas," such as the Cayman Islands, where Mexican drug cartels hold offshore dollar accounts. Some 20,000 accounts in the Caribbean archipelago are to be closed. At the same time the bank's top anti-money laundering compliance officer David Bagley told the Senate committee that he was stepping down.

Paul Thurston, who served as head of the Mexican affiliate HBMX from 2007 and 2008, described to the panel the frustrations he experienced

[RKP5637]

1. ... but 'little people' caught with some drugs will be dealt severe sentences. What

a mockery of justice.

[aquart]

2. Does that make up for the cash Romney shipped OUT of the country?