HSBC files: Swiss bank hid money for suspected criminals

[inanna]

Source: The Guardian

HSBC’s Swiss bank concealed large sums of money for people facing allegations of serious wrongdoing, including drug-running, corruption and money laundering, leaked files reveal.

Thursday 12 February 2015 18.21 GMT

<snip>

A number of east European bankers accused of misconduct were given Swiss accounts by HSBC. They include Vladimir Antonov, currently fighting extradition from the UK, who is accused of looting £400m from the Lithuanian Snoras bank.

HSBC files record Antonov as being “in negotiation to buy an executive jet”. Snoras assets of $63m (£41m) were also shifted into to an HSBC account, according to the leaked files. They were then used to back a loan to Antonov’s own Cyprus company, Panatrones Holdings. His lawyers said: “Mr Antonov is subject to several restraining orders and … injunctions.” They added that he held his Swiss accounts “for business reasons and because Swiss banks provide a better level of client care and are much more flexible than any UK banks”.

<snip>

Arturo del Tiempo Marques was a Spanish property developer operating in the Dominican Republic and a valued HSBC customer controlling up to 19 separate accounts, which in 2006-07 contained assets equivalent to £2.5m.

However, one of his shipping containers of construction materials, sent from the Dominican Republic to Spain, was found in 2010 to contain more than a tonne of cocaine, hidden behind a false panel. He is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Spain.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/12/hsbc-files-swiss-bank-hid-money-for-suspected-criminals

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Very difficult to condense this article; please read all of it. The Guardian is doing a great job reporting on this. There are several more articles relating to this on the Guardian home page.

[hatrack]

1. Still, if the drug smugglers, sweatshop lords and sex slavers donated to charity, it's all good!

We can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, or upset the all-important financial sector by too-rigorous enforcement of tax and banking laws.

[rhett o rick]

5. Yep, $81 million to the Clinton's charity. nm

[CanonRay]

2. I always thought that was why Swiss banks existed?

Hasn't every tinhorn dictator since forever stowed his cash there?

[markmyword]

3. Jail Time

The U.S. Government should JAIL ALL the bank officials who laundered DRUG CARTEL money!!!! No FINES for that, LONG JAIL TIME for these CRIMINAL BANKERS.
Then DISMANTLE this bank, the world won't collapse, even though it was said to be the worlds largest bank.
Break it up into sections and break those up too. Just make it SMALLER.

JAIL! JAIL! JAIL!!!!!

[KansDem]

4. I'm with you!

I smoke a doobie on my front porch and the police will arrest me and seize my assets.

Yet these criminals can launder drug money and walk away millionaires!

I say arrest them, seize their assets, and create a co-op of smaller banks with directors who want to make a better world for its inhabitants.

To hell with the OnePercenters!!!

[rhett o rick]

6. I think this is the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of billions maybe trillions of

dollars of "drug money" out there somewhere. It's in somebody's bank or 5. If one bank is making hundreds of millions off drug money, you can bet the others get on board. Gotta keep competitive.

[billhicks76]

7. Political Campaigns

Much is laundered that way.

[rhett o rick]

8. Drug money laundering is extremely profitable. nm

[MannyGoldstein]

9. I'm thinking it's better if we look to the future on this one.

These are patriotic people who love theircountries, and got a little too carried away as a result of that love.

Also they tend to have light-colored skin and dress in nice clothes - what good can come from inconveniencing them with a trial by jury of their "peers" (which will likely be the steerage riff-raff), and possible hard time?