HSBC Is Bankrolling Mexican Drug Lords' Cartel

[TonyGosling]

HSBC 'sorry' for aiding Mexican drugs lords, rogue states and terrorists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/17/hsbc-executive-resigns- senate
Executive quits in front of US Senate as bank faces massive fines for 'horrific' lapses that resulted in laundering money for drugs cartels and pariah states
Dominic Rushe in New York - The Guardian, Tuesday 17 July 2012 18.29 BST
US senators hear humiliating apologies from executives from HSBC, Europe's biggest bank
Executives with Europe's biggest bank, HSBC, were subjected to a humiliating onslaught from US senators on Tuesday over revelations that staff at its global subsidiaries laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels, terrorists and pariah states.
Lawmakers hammered the British-based bank over the scandal, demanding to know how and why its affiliates had exposed it to the proceeds of drug trafficking and terrorist financing in a "pervasively polluted" culture that persisted for years.
A report compiled for the committee detailed how HSBC's subsidiaries transported billions of dollars of cash in armoured vehicles, cleared suspicious travellers' cheques worth billions, and allowed Mexican drug lords buy to planes with money laundered through Cayman Islands accounts.
Other subsidiaries moved money from Iran, Syria and other countries on US sanctions lists, and helped a Saudi bank linked to al-Qaida to shift money to the US.
David Bagley, HSBC's head of compliance since 2002, and who had worked with the bank for more than 20 years, resigned before the committee.
"Despite the best efforts and intentions of many dedicated professionals, HSBC has fallen short of our own expectations and the expectations of our regulators," he said.
The bank has been under investigation for nearly a decade, and faces a massive fine from the US justice department for lapses in its safeguards. Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn, who conducted the hearing, said the permanent subcommittee of investigations had examined 1.4m documents as part of its review and thanked the bank for its co-operation.
The bank has apologised for its lapses and said reforms had been put in place. Paul Thurston, chief executive of retail banking and wealth management, who was sent in to try and clear up HSBC's Mexican banking business in 2007, said he was "horrified" by what he found.
"I should add that the external environment in Mexico was as challenging as any I had ever experienced. Bank employees faced very real risks of being targeted for bribery, extortion, and kidnapping – in fact, multiple kidnappings occurred throughout my tenure," he said.
The committee had released a damning report on Monday, which detailed a collapse in HSBC's compliance standards. The report showed executives at the bank has consistently warned of problems. At its Mexican subsidiary, one executive had warned the bank was "rubber-stamping unacceptable risks", according to one email gathered by the committee.
HSBC's Mexican operations moved $7bn into the bank's US operations, and according to its own staff, much of that money was tied to drug traffickers. Before the bank executives testified, the committee heard from Leigh Winchell, assistant director for investigative programs at US immigration & customs enforcement. He said 47,000 people had lost their lives since 2006 as a result of Mexican drug traffickers.
The senators highlighted testimony from Leopoldo Barroso, a former HSBC anti money-laundering director, who told company officials in an exit interview that he was concerned about "allegations of 60% to 70% of laundered proceeds in Mexico" going through HSBC's affiliate.
"In hindsight," said Bagley, "I think we all sometimes allowed a focus on what was lawful and compliant rather than what should have been best practices."
Levin and Coburn directed particular ire at a Cayman Islands subsidiary set up by the Mexico division of HSBC. That bank handled 50,000 client accounts and $2.1bn in holdings, but had no staff or offices. Money from the Cayman Islands was used to buy planes for Mexican drug traffickers, said the senators. Bagley said those accounts were all now in the process of being closed.
"Forget hindsight," said Levin. "Is there any way that should have been allowed to happen?"
"No, senator," said Thurston.
Levin repeatedly said that HSBC must have been aware of the problems. "This is something that people knew was going on at the bank," he said.
Bagley and Thurston said that HSBC's compliance had been fragmented and that oversight had been poor. They said that had now been changed. The bank has now adopted a global compliance structure and doubled the amount of money it is spending on oversight.
"Criminals operate globally and if we are to combat them and stop them from accessing and abusing the financial system, we must look at issues from a global perspective. Institutions which operate internationally, like HSBC, will be targeted by these criminals, and our experience in Mexico vividly demonstrates that you are no stronger than your weakest link," said Thurston.
While much of the hearing focused on Mexico, the senators also slammed the bank for dealings in Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other countries on US sanctions lists. HSBC executives continued to so business with Al Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia, even after it emerged that its owners had links to organizations financing terrorism and that one of the bank's founders was an early financial benefactor of al-Qaida.
While Coburn was unsparing of his criticism of HSBC, he thanked the bank for its co-operation and said there were issues at other institutions including Citigroup, Wachovia and Western Union.
But the report comes at a highly sensitive moment for British banks in the US. Following Barclays fine in the Libor-interest rate scandal and the massive losses at JP Morgan Chase's London offices US politicians have become increasingly critical of the UK's financial services sector.
At a recent hearing into the JP Morgan losses, Carolyn Maloney, a Democratic representative from New York, said: "It seems to be that every big trading disaster happens in London."

[TonyGosling]

Global Top Story Goes Unreported: DEA Struck A Deal With Mexico's Most Notorious Drug Cartel | Business Insider India http://www.businessinsider.in/CONFIRMED-The-DEA-Struck-A-Deal-With-Mex icos-Most-Notorious-Drug-Cartel/articleshow/28755253.cms

CONFIRMED: The DEA Struck A Deal With Mexico's Most Notorious Drug Cartel
Michael Kelley0Jan 13, 2014, 11.03 PM REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar
Suspected Mexican drug trafficker Vicente Zambada Niebla is presented to the media in Mexico City March 19, 2009.
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An investigation by El Universal has found that between 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an agreement with Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs into the U.S. in exchange for information on rival cartels.
Sinaloa, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, supplies 80% of the drugs flooding Chicago and has a presence in cities across the U.S.
There have long been allegations that Guzman, considered the "world's most powerful drug trafficker," coordinates with the U.S.
But the El Universal investigation is the first to publish court documents that include corroborating testimony from a DEA agent and a Justice Department official. The written statements were made to the U.S. District Court in Chicago in relation to the arrest of Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the Sinaloa cartel's "logistics coordinator" and son of leader Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
Here's what DEA agent Manuel Castanon told the Chicago court:
"On March 17, 2009, I met for approximately 30 minutes in a hotel room in Mexico City with Vincente Zambada-Niebla and two other individuals - DEA agent David Herrod and a cooperating source [Sinaloa lawyer Loya Castro] with whom I had worked since 2005. ... I did all of the talking on behalf of DEA."
A few hours later, Mexican Marines arrested Zambada-Niebla. Castanon and three other agents then visited Zambada-Niebla in prison, where the Sinaloa officer "reiterated his desire to cooperate."
El Universal reports that DEA agents met with high level Sinaloa officials more than 50 times since 2000.
Then-Justice Department prosecutor Patrick Hearn told the Chicago court that, according to DEA special agent Steve Fraga, Castro "provided information leading to a 23 ton cocaine seizure, other seizures related to" other drug trafficking organizations, and that Zambada-Niebla's father wanted him to cooperate with the U.S.
"The DEA agents met with members of the cartel, in Mexico, to obtain information about their rivals and simultaneously built a network of informants who sign drug cooperation agreements, subject to results, to enable them to obtain future benefits, including cancellation of charges in the U.S.," reports El Universal, which also interviewed more than one hundred active and retired police officers as well as prisoners and experts.
Zambada-Niebla's lawyer says Castro struck a deal with U.S. agents in which Sinaloa would provide information about rival drug trafficking organizations while the U.S. would dismiss its case against Castro and refrain from interfering with Sinaloa drug trafficking activities or actively prosecute Sinaloa leadership.
"The agents stated that this arrangement had been approved by high-ranking officials and federal prosecutors," the lawyer wrote.
After being extradited to Chicago, Zambada-Niebla argued that he was also "immune from arrest or prosecution" because he actively provided information to U.S. federal agents.
Niebla also alleged that Operation Fast and Furious was part of an agreement to finance and arm the cartel in exchange for information used to take down its rivals. (If true, that re-raises the issue regarding what Attorney General Eric Holder's knew about the gun-running arrangements.)
A Mexican foreign service officer told the private security firm Stratfor in April 2010 that the U.S. seemed to have sided with the Sinaloa cartel in an attempt to limit the violence in Mexico.
El Universal said that the coordination between the U.S. and Sinaloa peaked between 2006 and 2012, which is when drug cartels consolidated their grip on Mexico. The report ends by saying that it is unclear whether the arrangements continue.
The DEA declined to comment.

[outsider]

It is widely acknowledged in the Alternative underground that the CIA is the world's number 1 drug trafficker (just as it is acknowledged that the US is the world's greatest terrorist country).

There are some extremely important books and videos which should be read and watched, which clearly show that the CIA is the number one drug trafficker on the planet, bar none. There are pictures of the world's highest-ranking paedophile, George H.W. Bush (he once stayed on the plane in Australia, because of crowds of demonstrators making just that point, but it was ignored by the US 'Media') smiling in a Central American jungle drug factory.
'Poppy' Bush a paedophile? Read Cathy O'Brien & Mark Phillips' 'Trance - Formation of America', or better the later 'Access Denied - For Reasons of National Security'; his paedophilia and drug dealing are spelt out, as are Clinton's drug links and many others.
Read 'Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA' by Terry Reed and John Cummings; read 'Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America' by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall; read 'Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil' by Mike Ruppert and Catherine Austin Fitts.
Also, watch 'The Mena Connection + video'; ''Ritual Abuse and MK-ULTRA Mind Control " Cathy O'Brien + video"; read the article 'The Spoils of War: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade' (Global Research) (the CIA have been 'at it' since Vietnam, shipping planeloads of drugs through their own airline, 'Air America').
And of course, 'Skull & Bones' was set up with drug money from the China opium trade.

As Cathy O'Brien says: 'The US 'War on Drugs' is really a war on the CIA's competitors'.