Sen. Warren: "What does it take?" to punish big banks for money laundering

[Redfairen]

...what was clear from Thursday's Senate hearing on money laundering enforcement and statements by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday is that regulators and prosecutors are scared of shutting down banks that launder money, or even of jailing bank executives who look the other way as the institutions they work for process my suspicious transactions.

As Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, Mass.) noted on Thursday, HSBC admitted "to laundering $881 million that we know of for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. And also admitted to violating our sanctions for Iran, Libya, Cuba, Burma, the Sudan. And they didn't do it just one time. It wasn't like a mistake. They did it over and over and over again across a period of years. And they were caught doing it. Warned not to do it. And kept right on doing it. And evidently making profits doing it."

Still, Warren points out, "no one individual went to trial. No individual was banned from banking. And there was no hearing to consider shutting down HSBC's activities here in the United States."

So she wants to know, "what does it take? How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like (HSBC)?"

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11864094/1/money-laundering-still-pays.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN

[onehandle]

1. Steel pipe to the kneecap? nt

[Myrina]

2. Same thing it took with Madoff -- rich people gotta suffer.

The rest of us working schmucks? Who gives a crap.

[msongs]

3. warren should subpoena holder and obama and ask those questions nt

[forestpath]

5. +1 If she doesn't, she's just enabling them.

[DevonRex]

6. If you read the article

Holder answered that question when asked by Chuck Grassley in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. There was an article about it in GD if I remember correctly, entitled something like Holder admits banks too big to prosecute or something like that.

The banks must be broken up. I have no doubt this was part of their strategy, the banks, I mean. Well, obviously it was their strategy.

[dmosh42]

4. What we need to know is who in the DOJ has this info, and how much did he make to look away?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. Why hasn't anyone asked this before?

The banks have been doing this for years