{"id":31734,"date":"2012-12-12T09:08:41","date_gmt":"2012-12-12T16:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/12\/too-big-to-fail-too-big-to-prosecute.html"},"modified":"2012-12-12T09:08:41","modified_gmt":"2012-12-12T16:08:41","slug":"too-big-to-fail-too-big-to-prosecute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/12\/too-big-to-fail-too-big-to-prosecute.html","title":{"rendered":"Too big to fail, too big to prosecute"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>&#39;Over the last year, federal investigators found that one of the world&#39;s largest banks, HSBC, spent years committing serious crimes, involving money laundering for terrorists; &quot;facilitat[ing] money laundering by Mexican drug cartels&quot;; and &quot;mov[ing] tainted money for Saudi banks tied to terrorist groups&quot;. Those investigations uncovered substantial evidence &quot;that senior bank officials were complicit in the illegal activity.&quot; As but one example, &quot;an HSBC executive at one point argued that the bank should continue working with the Saudi Al Rajhi bank, which has supported Al Qaeda.&quot;<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Needless to say, these are the kinds of crimes for which ordinary and powerless people are prosecuted and imprisoned with the greatest aggression possible. If you&#39;re Muslim and your conduct gets anywhere near helping a terrorist group, even by accident, you&#39;re going to prison for a long, long time. In fact, powerless, obscure, low-level employees are routinely sentenced to long prison terms for engaging in relatively petty money laundering schemes, unrelated to terrorism, and on a scale that is a tiny fraction of what HSBC and its senior officials are alleged to have done.&#39;<\/i><\/p>\n<p>But nobody from HSBCwill be facing criminal charges, let alone going to jail.<\/p>\n<p><i>&#39;&quot;Announcing the record fine at a press conference in New York, assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer said that despite HSBC&quot;s &#39;blatant failure&#39; to implement anti-money laundering controls and its wilful flouting of US sanctions, the consequences of a criminal prosecution would have been dire.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>&quot;Had the US authorities decided to press criminal charges, HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking licence in the US, the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilised.&#39;<\/i><\/p>\n<p style='clear:both;'>\n<p style='margin-bottom:5px;'><strong>Embedded Link<\/strong><\/p>\n<div style='height:120px;width:120px;overflow:hidden;float:left;margin-top:0px;padding-top:0px;margin-right:10px;vertical-align:top;text-align:center;clear:both;'>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img style='max-width:none;' src='https:\/\/images2-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?url=http:\/\/static.guim.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/audio\/video\/2012\/12\/11\/1355257826151\/Lanny-Breuer-HSBC-010.jpg&#038;container=focus&#038;gadget=a&#038;rewriteMime=image\/*&#038;refresh=31536000&#038;resize_h=150&#038;resize_w=150&#038;no_expand=1' border='0' \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/commentisfree\/2012\/dec\/12\/hsbc-prosecution-fine-money-laundering?utm_source=twitterfeed&#038;utm_medium=twitter&#038;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Fcommentisfree%2Frss+%28Comment+is+free%29'>HSBC, too big to jail, is the new poster child for US two-tiered justice system<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDOJ officials unblinkingly insist that the banking giant is too powerful and important to subject to the rule of law\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p style='clear:both;'> <strong>Google+:<\/strong> <a href='https:\/\/plus.google.com\/101083456815352083930\/posts\/EZyiSSM8fLd' target='_new'>View post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#39;Over the last year, federal investigators found that one of the world&#39;s largest banks, HSBC, spent years committing serious crimes, involving money laundering for terrorists; &quot;facilitat[ing] money laundering by Mexican drug cartels&quot;; and &quot;mov[ing] tainted money for Saudi banks tied to terrorist groups&quot;. Those investigations uncovered substantial evidence &quot;that senior bank officials were complicit in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/12\/too-big-to-fail-too-big-to-prosecute.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Too big to fail, too big to prosecute&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":135795,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/10\/draining-swamp-right-coffers.html","url_meta":{"origin":31734,"position":0},"title":"Draining the swamp &#8230; right into his own coffers","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Jan-18 1:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's good to have the President of the United States owe you millions of dollars. The Trump administration has waived part of the punishment for five megabanks whose affiliates were convicted and fined for manipulating global interest rates. One of the Trump administration waivers was granted to Deutsche Bank \u2014\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/unnamed-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2814,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/09\/18\/al_qaedas_lates.html","url_meta":{"origin":31734,"position":1},"title":"Al Qa&#8217;eda&#8217;s latest crimes against humanity","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 18-Sep-02 4:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"If there was any thought that opinion in the US about the War on Terror might be fracturing, a simple review of this article will be enough get the wimpiest...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Geopolitical Brouhaha&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130798,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/04\/because-once-they-have-it-its-not-really-your-money.html","url_meta":{"origin":31734,"position":2},"title":"Because once they have it, it&#039;s not really your money?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 4-Jun-16 10:12am","format":false,"excerpt":"Detroit woman deposits a large sum of money from a wrongful death suit about her brother's demise. Withdraws some sizeable chunks. Goes to withdraw more. Gets grilled by a teller as to where the money came from. Teller doesn't like her reply. Teller freezes the account pending investigation. Now woman\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130844,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/10\/millard-sheets-the-wizard-of-home-savings-murals.html","url_meta":{"origin":31734,"position":3},"title":"Millard Sheets, the Wizard of Home Savings Murals","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 10-Jun-16 4:21pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Growing up in Southern California, I always marveled at the lovely and elaborate murals on Home Savings bank buildings. I was always disappointed that my dad worked for other banks, so that we never had any excuse to visit. Here's a cool article (h\/t +Mary Oswell) on the artist behind\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6578,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/08\/16\/yeah_id_call_th.html","url_meta":{"origin":31734,"position":4},"title":"Yeah, I&#8217;d call that a &#8220;bank error&#8221;","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 16-Aug-04 8:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Having both a mother and a mother-in-law who have worked as bank tellers (and having managed a cash register myself), I know how hinky banks get about drawers being short....","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132479,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/01\/01\/a-problem-with-a-president-and-cabinet-enmeshed-in-high-finance.html","url_meta":{"origin":31734,"position":5},"title":"A problem with a President and Cabinet Enmeshed in High Finance","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Jan-17 4:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Everything in the finance world is connected. Someone who is a \"banker\" doesn't just sit at an office at one bank for his career. Someone who is a \"billionaire\" doesn't just sit at his desk at home watching the investments come in.'Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, tapped by President-elect Donald Trump\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}