{"id":51448,"date":"2013-07-18T22:39:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T21:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/money-laundering-and-the-global-drug-trade-are-fueled-by-the-capitalist-elites\/51448\/"},"modified":"2013-07-18T22:39:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T21:39:40","slug":"money-laundering-and-the-global-drug-trade-are-fueled-by-the-capitalist-elites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/money-laundering-and-the-global-drug-trade-are-fueled-by-the-capitalist-elites\/","title":{"rendered":"Money Laundering and the Global Drug Trade are Fueled by the Capitalist Elites"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was first published July 21, 2010.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

When investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker broke the\u00a0story<\/a>\u00a0four years ago that a DC-9 (N900SA) \u201cregistered to a company which once used as its address the hangar of Huffman Aviation, the flight school at the Venice, Florida Airport which trained both terrorist pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, was caught in Campeche by the Mexican military \u2026 carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine destined for the U.S.,\u201d it elicited a collective yawn from corporate media.<\/p>\n

And when authorities searched the plane and found its cargo consisted solely of 128 identical black suitcases marked \u201cprivate,\u201d packed with cocaine valued at more than $100 million, the silence was deafening.<\/p>\n

But now a\u00a0Bloomberg Markets<\/a>\u00a0magazine report, \u201cWachovia\u2019s Drug Habit,\u201d reveals that drug traffickers bought that plane, and perhaps\u00a0fifty<\/a>\u00a0others, \u201cwith laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.,\u201d Wachovia and Bank of America.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department\u00a0charge sheet<\/a>\u00a0against the bank tells us that between 2003 and 2008, Wachovia handled $378.4 billion for Mexican currency exchanges, \u201cthe largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA sum\u201d\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0averred, equal to one-third of Mexico\u2019s current gross domestic product.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2006, some 22,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence. Thousands more have been wounded, countless others \u201cdisappeared,\u201d torture and illegal imprisonment is rampant.<\/p>\n

In a frightening echo of the Reagan administration\u2019s anti-communist jihad in Central America during the 1980s, the Bush and now, Obama administration has poured fuel on the fire with some $1.4 billion in \u201cWar on Drugs\u201d funding under Plan M\u00c3\u00a9rida. Much of that \u201caid\u201d is destined to purchase military equipment for repressive police, specialized paramilitary units and the Mexican Army.<\/p>\n

There is also evidence of direct U.S. military involvement. In June,\u00a0The Narco News Bulletin<\/a>\u00a0reported that \u201ca special operations task force under the command of the Pentagon is currently in place south of the border providing advice and training to the Mexican Army in gathering intelligence, infiltrating and, as needed, taking direct action against narco-trafficking organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

One former U.S. government official told investigative journalist Bill Conroy, \u201c\u2018Black operations have been going on forever. The recent [mainstream] media reports about those operations under the Obama administration make it sound like it\u2019s a big scoop, but it\u2019s nothing new for those who understand how things really work\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, as numerous investigations by American and Mexican journalists have revealed, there is strong evidence of collusion between the Mexican Army and the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. A former Juarez police commander told\u00a0NPR<\/a>\u00a0in May that \u201cthe intention of the army is to try and get rid of the Juarez cartel, so that [Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman] Chapo\u2019s [Sinaloa] cartel is the strongest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cosy relations among the world\u2019s biggest banks, drug trafficking organizations and the U.S. military-intelligence apparatus is not however, a new phenomenon. What\u00a0is\u00a0different today is the scale and sheer scope of the corruption involved. As Michel Chossudovsky points out,<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis trade can only prosper if the main actors involved in narcotics have \u201cpolitical friends in high places.\u201d As legal and illegal undertakings are increasingly intertwined, the dividing line between \u201cbusinesspeople\u201d and criminals is blurred. In turn, the relationship among criminals, politicians and members of the intelligence establishment has tainted the structures of the state and the role of its institutions, including the military.\u201d (The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century, Montreal:Global Research<\/a>, 2010, pp. 195-196)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While the\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0story\u00a0should\u00a0cast new light on highly-profitable links amongst major financial institutions and narcotrafficking organizations in what may be\u00a0protected\u00a0drug rackets green-lighted by corrupt officials, media silence, particularly by outlets such as\u00a0The Wall Street Journal\u00a0and theFinancial Times, threaten to propel what\u00a0should\u00a0be an international scandal into a one-off news item scheduled for a trip down the memory hole.<\/p>\n

\u201cCocaine One\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

If, as\u00a0New York Times\u00a0columnist Thomas Friedman claims \u201cthe hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist,\u201d then perhaps too, drug cartels work their \u201cmarket magic\u201d with their own \u201chidden fist\u201d or, as the Russians like to say akrysha, a web of protectors\u2014and facilitators\u2014drawn from business, finance, organized crime and the secret world of intelligence.<\/p>\n

Dubbed \u201cCocaine One\u201d by Hopsicker, the DC-9 was curious for a number of reasons, not least of which was the fact that \u201cone of the chief shareholders\u201d of a dodgy outfit called SkyWay Aircraft \u201cis a private investment bank in Dallas which also raised funds for a Mexican industrialist with reported ties to a Cali and Juarez Cartel narcotics trafficker.\u201d<\/p>\n

More curious still, the airline kitted-out its fleet with distinctive colors and a seal \u201cdesigned to impersonate planes from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.\u201d And when he\u00a0learned<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cSkyWay\u2019s genesis can be traced to In-Q-Tel Inc., a secretive, Arlington, Va., investment group owned, operated, and financed out of the black box budget of the Central Intelligence Agency,\u201d well you can bet corporate media ran themselves ragged investigating\u00a0that!<\/p>\n

To top it off, when\u00a0another\u00a0drug plane crash landed in the Yucatan Peninsula eighteen months later and broke apart, a Gulfstream II business jet (N987SA) that spilled \u201c4 tons of cocaine across a muddy field,\u201d Hopsicker\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that it had originated from the same network and used the same source for its financing, the \u201cCasa de Cambio Puebla SA, a country-wide network of currency exchanges.\u201d<\/p>\n

And to make matters even more intriguing from a parapolitical perspective, after searching through FAA records Hopsickerdiscovered<\/a>\u00a0that the Gulfstream II business jet \u201cwas owned by a secretive Midwestern media baron and Republican fund-raiser, who had a business partner who, incredibly, owned the\u00a0otherAmerican drug plane, the DC-9, recently busted in Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, as\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0investigative journalist Michael Smith learned years later, these were the\u00a0same\u00a0planes and\u00a0samecurrency exchange which Hopsicker reported back in 2007 traffickers had used to purchase drug jets with funds laundered through Wachovia.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne customer that Wachovia took on in 2004 was Casa de Cambio Puebla SA,\u201d Smith wrote. The Puebla, Mexico currency exchange was the brainchild of Pedro Alatorre, a \u201cbusinessman\u201d who \u201chad created front companies for cartels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alatorre, and 70 others connected to his network, were seized in 2007 by Mexican law enforcement officials. Authorities discovered that the accused drug money launderer and airline broker for the cartels controlled 23 accounts at the Wachovia Bank branch in Miami and that it held some $11 million, subsequently frozen by U.S. investigators.<\/p>\n

In 2008, a Miami federal grand jury indicted Alatorre, now awaiting trial in Mexico along with three other executives, charging them with drug trafficking and money laundering, accusing the company of using \u201cshell firms to launder $720 million through U.S. banks.\u201d The Justice Department is currently seeking Alatorre\u2019s extradition from Mexico.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Bloomberg, \u201cPuebla executives used the stolen identities of 74 people to launder money through Wachovia accounts.\u201d Jose Luis Marmolejo, the former head of the Mexican attorney general\u2019s financial crimes unit told Smith, \u201cWachovia handled all the transfers, and they never reported any as suspicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some $300,000 was transferred by Wachovia to a Bank of America branch in Oklahoma City. With cash in hand\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0reports, traffickers \u201cused the funds to buy the DC-9 through Oklahoma City aircraft broker U.S. Aircraft Titles Inc.\u201d When queried by Smith about the sale, \u201cU.S. Aircraft Titles President Sue White declined to comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the Wachovia case said in a press\u00a0release<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cWachovia\u2019s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, as Hopsicker wrote nearly three years ago, \u201cthe politically-explosive implications of the scandal may explain why American officials have been reluctant to move against,\u00a0or even name, the true owners of the planes and basically \u2018turned a blind eye\u2019 to the American involvement exposed by the drug trafficking seizures.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of this writing, no Americans have been criminally charged in the cash-for drug planes banking conspiracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTroubled Assets\u201d or Something More Sinister?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, once America\u2019s fourth largest bank in 2008 at the fire-sale price of $12.8 billion, the bank and its former CEO, Kennedy \u201cKen\u201d Thompson, who \u201cretired at the request of the board\u201d before the full-extent of the financial meltdown hit home, were in deep trouble.<\/p>\n

Before the Wells takeover, Wachovia had been on a veritable shopping spree. After the firm\u2019s 2001 merger with First Union Bank, Wachovia merged with the Prudential Securities division of Prudential Financial, Inc., with Wachovia controlling the lion\u2019s share of the firm\u2019s $532.1 billion in assets. This was followed by the bank\u2019s purchase of Metropolitan West Securities, adding a $50 billion portfolio of securities and loans to the bank\u2019s Lending division. In 2004, Wachovia followed-up with the $14.3 billion acquisition of SouthTrust Corporation.<\/p>\n

Apparently flush with cash and new market clout, Wachovia set it sights on acquiring California-based Golden West Financial. Golden West operated branches under the name World Savings Bank and was the nation\u2019s second largest savings and loan. At the time of the buy-out, Golden West had over $125 billion in assets. For Wachovia however, it was a deal too far.<\/p>\n

With an enormous housing bubble fully inflated, and a new speculative merger-mania in full swing, one can only surmise that the need for liquidity at any price, had driven banking giants such as Wachovia to play dumb when shadier, yet highly-profitable transactions, such as the \u201carrangement\u201d with Casa de Cambio Puebla SA, were involved.<\/p>\n

Bleeding cash faster than you can say \u201cmortgage backed securities,\u201d Wachovia was on the hook for their 2006 $26 billion buy-out of Golden West Financial at the peak of the housing bubble, a move that\u00a0BusinessWeek<\/a>\u00a0reported generated \u201cresistance from his own management team\u201d but ignored by Thompson.<\/p>\n

Why? \u201cBecause no one outside of Thompson and Golden West CEO Herb Sandler seemed to like the deal from the moment it was announced,\u201d a company insider told\u00a0BusinessWeek.<\/p>\n

While the buy-out may have given Thompson \u201cthe beachhead in California he had long desired \u2026 the ink was barely dry on the Golden West deal in late 2006 when the housing bubble in markets including California and Florida began to deflate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hammered by the housing bust, Wachovia\u2019s share price, which had risen to $70.51 per share when the Golden West deal was announced had slid to $5.71 per share by October 2008. In other words, Wachovia, along with the world\u2019s economy, began circling the proverbial drain.<\/p>\n

However you slice it, although it was clear that the Golden West deal had gone south quicker than you can say \u201ccredit default swaps,\u201d this didn\u2019t seem to stop Wachovia from paying \u201csmartest guy in the room\u201d Thompson $15.6 million in total compensation in 2007, a year after the fatal Golden West transaction. Nor did these losses stop the bank from showering Thompson with a severance package worth nearly $8 million.<\/p>\n

But was something\u00a0else\u00a0going on here?<\/p>\n

Wells Fargo bank admitted in a signed\u00a0Deferred Prosecution Agreement<\/a>\u00a0with the federal government that they would not contest charges brought by the Justice Department in itsindictment<\/a>\u00a0of the bank.<\/p>\n

The banking giant was forced to admit charges by prosecutors that \u201cOn numerous occasions, monies were deposited into a CDC [Casa de Cambio] by a drug trafficking organization. Using false identities, the CDC then wired that money through its Wachovia correspondent bank accounts for the purchase of airplanes for drug trafficking organizations. On various dates between 2004 and 2007, at least four of those airplanes were seized by foreign law enforcement agencies cooperating with the United States and were found to contain large quantities of cocaine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bloomberg\u00a0reported that Wells Fargo, in the wake of the settlement \u201cdeclined to answer specific questions, including how much it made by handling $378.4 billion\u2014including $4 billion of cash\u2014from Mexican exchange companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was however, more than \u201ctroubled assets\u201d and charges of money laundering to the story. In fact, the purchase of these drug planes have been tied to some of the Bush administration\u2019s most secretive \u201cWar On Terror\u201d programs.<\/p>\n

Drug Flights, CIA Renditions. Just Another Day at the Office!
<\/strong>
Replicating a pattern used by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, the secret state used a network of cut-outs and legitimate businesses to transport prisoners to Agency black sites for \u201cspecial handling.\u201d<\/p>\n

During Iran-Contra it was \u201cguns in, drugs out.\u201d Today one might say its \u201cdrugs in, tortured prisoners out.\u201d The results however, were the same; egregious crimes and lawbreaking on a staggering scale.<\/p>\n

Subsequent investigations by\u00a0Narco News<\/a>\u00a0revealed that \u201cthis particular Gulfstream II (tail number N987SA), was used between 2003 and 2005 by the CIA for at least three trips between the U.S. east coast and Guantanamo Bay, home to the infamous \u2018terrorist\u2019 prison camp,\u201d Bill Conroy reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition,\u201d Conroy wrote, \u201cthe two SkyWay companies are associated with individuals who have done highly sensitive work for the Department of Defense or U.S. intelligence agencies, public records show and\u00a0Narco News\u00a0sources confirm.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0AFP<\/a>, the Mexican daily\u00a0El Universal\u00a0said \u201cit had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which \u2018show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects,\u2019\u201d the French newswire reported.<\/p>\n

The plane was carrying \u201cColombian drugs\u201d bound for the U.S. for the \u201cfugitive leader of Mexico\u2019s Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin \u2018Chapo\u2019 Guzman,\u201d when it crashed in the Yucatan.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0El Universal, the Federal Aviation Administration\u2019s \u201clogbook registered that the plane had traveled between US territory and the US military base in Guantanamo,\u201d and that its last registered owner was \u201cClyde O\u2019Connor in Pompano Beach, Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Independent<\/a>\u00a0confirmed separately in January of this year that \u201cEvidence points to aircraft\u2014familiarly known as \u2018torture taxis\u2019\u2014used by the CIA to move captives seized in its kidnapping or \u2018extraordinary rendition\u2019 operations through Gatwick and other airports in the EU being simultaneously used for drug distribution in the Western hemisphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hugh O\u2019Shaughnessy, confirming earlier reporting by Bill Conroy and Daniel Hopsicker said that \u201ca Gulfstream II jet aircraft N9875A identified by the British Government and the European Parliament as being involved in this traffic crashed in Mexico in September 2008 while en route from Colombia to the US with a load of more than three tons of cocaine.\u201d<\/p>\n

While O\u2019Shaughnessy got the tail-number and date wrong, he\u2019s correct when he states that U.S. intelligence assets \u201ccontinue the drug dealing they indulged in during the Iran-Contra affair of the Reagan years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Narco News<\/a>, citing DEA sources, learned that the crashed Gulfstream loaded with four tons of cocaine \u201cwas part of an operation being carried out by a Department of Homeland Security agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

However in a later report, Mark Conrad, a former supervisory special agent with ICE\u2019s predecessor agency, U.S. Customs, toldNarco News<\/a>\u00a0that the crashed Gulfstream used to transport drugs and prisoners was controlled by the CIA and \u201cthat the CIA, not ICE \u2026 [was] actually the U.S. agency controlling the \u2026 operation. If this were the case, then \u201cany individuals or companies involved in a CIA-backed operation, even ones that are complicit in drug trafficking, would be off limits to U.S. law enforcers due to the cloak of national security the CIA can invoke.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, a jet purchased by drug traffickers with funds laundered through an American bank and used in the CIA\u2019s \u201cextraordinary rendition\u201d program may have been part of aprotected\u00a0drug operation by U.S. intelligence agencies. An operation furthermore, whose purpose is still unknown.<\/p>\n

This report tracks closely with evidence uncovered by Peter Dale Scott. In a recent piece in\u00a0Japan Focus<\/a>\u00a0Scott wrote that \u201cit is not surprising that the U.S. Government, following the lead of the CIA, has over the years become a protector of drug traffickers against criminal prosecution in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA recent spectacular example\u201d Scott tells us, drawing on research from his forthcoming book, is the curious case of CIA Venezuelan asset, General Ramon Guill\u00c3\u00a9n Davila.<\/p>\n

General Ramon Guill\u00c3\u00a9n Davila, chief of a CIA-created anti-drug unit in Venezuela, was indicted in Miami for smuggling a ton of cocaine into the United States. According to the New York Times, \u201cThe CIA, over the objections of the Drug Enforcement Administration, approved the shipment of at least one ton of pure cocaine to Miami International Airport as a way of gathering information about the Colombian drug cartels.\u201d Time magazine reported that a single shipment amounted to 998 pounds, following earlier ones \u201ctotaling nearly 2,000 pounds.\u201d Mike Wallace confirmed that \u201cthe CIA-national guard undercover operation quickly accumulated this cocaine, over a ton and a half that was smuggled from Colombia into Venezuela.\u201d According to the Wall Street Journal, the total amount of drugs smuggled by Gen. Guill\u00c3\u00a9n may have been more than 22 tons. (Fueling America\u2019s War Machine: Deep Politics and the CIA\u2019s Global Drug Connection\u00a0(in press, due Fall 2010 from Rowman & Littlefield).<\/p>\n

Scott adds that \u201cthe United States never asked for Guill\u00c3\u00a9n\u2019s extradition from Venezuela to stand trial; and in 2007, when he was arrested in Venezuela for plotting to assassinate President Hugo Chavez, his indictment was still sealed in Miami. Meanwhile, CIA officer Mark McFarlin, whom DEA Chief Bonner had also wished to indict, was never indicted at all; he merely resigned.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the stench of Iran-Contra, like that of the CIA\u2019s torture program, as with earlier secret state machinations with drug cartels never went away; in fact, like a cancer, one managed drug operation seamlessly metastasized into another.<\/p>\n

Greasing the Wheels<\/strong><\/p>\n

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODOC<\/a>) state in their 2010 Annual Report that \u201cmoney-laundering is the method by which criminals disguise the illegal origins of their wealth and protect their asset bases in order to avoid suspicion of law enforcement and to prevent leaving a trail of incriminating evidence,\u201d and that financial institutions, particularly U.S. and European banks are key to efforts to choke-off illicit profits from the grisly trade.<\/p>\n

The trouble is these institutions, along with U.S. intelligence agencies,\u00a0are\u00a0the problem.<\/p>\n

UNODOC estimate that profits derived from narcotics rackets amount to some $600 billion annually and that up to $1.5\u00a0trilliondollars in drug money is laundered through seemingly legitimate enterprises.<\/p>\n

Part of the fallout from capitalism\u2019s economic meltdown has been that \u201cdrugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis,\u201d\u00a0The Observer<\/a>\u00a0disclosed late last year.<\/p>\n

Antonio Maria Costa, UNODOC\u2019s director, told the British newspaper he saw evidence that proceeds from the illicit trade were \u201cthe only liquid investment capital\u201d available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year and that \u201ca majority of the $352bn (\u00a3216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UN drugs chief said that in \u201cmany instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital.\u201d And with markets tanking and major bank failures nearly a daily occurrence, \u201cliquidity was the banking system\u2019s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Costa, \u201cInter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities\u2026 There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Web of Corruption<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although the UN\u2019s top anti-narcotics official declined to identify either the countries or banks that have benefited from the murderous trade, a web of corruption envelops the entire financial sector of the capitalist economy as the quest for \u201cliquid assets\u201d trumps everything.<\/p>\n

Martin Woods, once director of Wachovia\u2019s anti-money-laundering unit in London told\u00a0Bloomberg, \u201cIt\u2019s the banks laundering money for the cartels that finances the tragedy.\u201d Woods told the magazine he \u201cquit the bank in disgust\u201d after executives \u201cignored his documentation that drug dealers were funneling money through Wachovia\u2019s branch network.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite warnings from the Treasury Department since 1996 that Mexican currency exchanges were laundering drug money through U.S. banks, \u201cWachovia ignored warnings by regulators and police, according to the deferred-prosecution agreement,\u201dBloomberg\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs early as 2004, Wachovia understood the risk,\u201d the bank admitted in court. \u201cDespite these warnings, Wachovia remained in the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the bank\u2019s anti-money laundering unit in London, Woods and his counterpart Jim DeFazio in Charlotte, NC told Smith \u201cthey suspected that drug dealers were using the bank to move funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Scotland Yard investigator Woods, said he \u201cspotted illegible signatures and other suspicious markings on traveler\u2019s checks from Mexican exchange companies,\u201d and that he sent copies of his report to the U.K.\u2019s Financial Services Authority, the DEA and U.S. Treasury Department.<\/p>\n

But rather than being rewarded for his diligence, Woods told Smith \u201chis bosses instructed him to keep quiet and tried to have him fired.\u201d In one meeting, \u201ca bank official insisted Woods shouldn\u2019t have filed suspicious activity reports to the government, as both U.S. and U.K. laws require.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a whistleblower suit filed with an employment tribunal in London,\u00a0Barrons<\/a>\u00a0reported last year before the Wachovia scandal broke, that Woods claimed \u201chis bosses bullied and demoted him, then withdrew his reports of other suspicious activities in Eastern Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

It gets worse. Woods\u2019 complaint alleges \u201cthat Wachovia staff may have even tipped off Mexican-exchange clients about his laundering suspicions,\u201d and the veteran investigator told Wachovia officials \u201che feared for his safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, bank spokesperson Mary Eshet said at the time, \u201cWachovia believes that it has acted appropriately in its business dealings, and Mr. Woods\u2019 claims to the contrary are without merit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on the American side of the pond, 21-year FBI veteran DeFazio said \u201che told bank executives in 2005 that the DEA was probing the transfers through Wachovia to buy the planes.\u201d The bank ignored his warnings and continued along on their merry way until their indictment.<\/p>\n

The law enforcement veteran told\u00a0Bloomberg, \u201cI think they looked at the money and said, \u2018The hell with it. We\u2019re going to bring it in, and look at all the money we\u2019ll make\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former Scotland yard investigator added, \u201cIf you don\u2019t see the correlation between the money laundering by banks and the 22,000 people killed in Mexico, you\u2019re missing the point.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Wachovia wasn\u2019t the only large financial institution \u201cmissing the point.\u201d\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0also revealed that Bank of America and the London-based \u201cHSBC Holdings Plc, Europe\u2019s biggest bank by assets,\u201d American Express Bank, Banco Santander SA, Citigroup Inc., as well as \u201cthe world\u2019s largest money transfer firm,\u201d Western Union were also up to their eyeballs in dubious transactions.<\/p>\n

In 1994 for example, American Express paid $14 million to settle with the federal government after \u201ctwo employees were convicted in a criminal case involving drug trafficker Juan Garcia Abrego.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet between 1999-2004,\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0reported \u201cthe bank failed to stop clients from laundering $55 million of narcotics funds, the bank admitted in a deferred-prosecution agreement in August 2007 \u2026 and paid $65 million to the U.S. and promised not to break the law again.\u201d Charges were dismissed a year later under terms of the agreement.<\/p>\n

And back in 2004,\u00a0The Independent<\/a>\u00a0disclosed that \u201cHSBC, the UK\u2019s largest bank, have been slammed for lax money-laundering procedures in a report by a US Senate subcommittee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Journalists Hugh O\u2019Shaughnessy and Paul Lashmar revealed that \u201cthe UK-based multinational stands accused of laxity in the fight against money laundering, drug trafficking, corruption and terrorism, notably in the oil-rich African state of Equatorial Guinea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn one of the few cases\u201d when the scandal-plagued and now-shuttered Riggs Bank \u201cseems to have properly followed US anti-money-laundering legislation,\u201d Riggs formally asked HSBC and a Spanish bank, Banco Santander, \u201cto divulge the identities of the owners of two companies that kept accounts with them and that were receiving suspicious wire transfers totalling in excess of $35m (\u00a320m). The banks refused to say who the owners were.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bloomberg\u00a0disclosed that \u201cfederal agents caught people who work for Mexican cartels depositing illicit funds in Bank of America accounts in Atlanta, Chicago and Brownsville, Texas, from 2002 to 2009.\u201d Authorities contend that \u201cMexican drug dealers used shell companies to open accounts at London-based HSBC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, neither bank were accused of wrongdoing by the federal government and both firms denied any involvement in money laundering schemes.<\/p>\n

Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton told Smith that they \u201cstrictly follow the government rules.\u201d Norton said, \u201cBank of America takes its anti-money-laundering responsibilities very seriously,\u201d a fact not readily apparent from\u00a0Bloomberg Marketsinvestigation.<\/p>\n

Both Norton and HSBC spokesman Roy Caple told Smith that \u201c[privacy] laws bar them from discussing specific clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so it goes.<\/p>\n

Fallout? What Fallout!
<\/strong>
In the wake of Wachovia\u2019s admission to federal prosecutors, Wells Fargo will pay \u201c$160 million in fines and penalties, less than 2 percent of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Wells Fargo keeps its pledge,\u201d\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0reports, then \u201caccording to the agreement [the federal government will] drop all charges against the bank in March 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why might that be? Large banks are immune from vigorous prosecution for violating the Bank Secrecy Act \u201cby a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veteran Senate investigator Jack Blum, who led probes into the Iran-Contra drug connection and the CIA\u2019s favorite shadow bank during the 1980s, the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI<\/a>) toldBloomberg, \u201cthe theory is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for big banks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no capacity to regulate or punish them because they\u2019re too big to be threatened with failure,\u201d Blum says. \u201cThey seem to be willing to do anything that improves their bottom line, until they\u2019re caught.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile as the bodies pile up, there\u2019s no jail time for executives and the assets of firms that could charitably be described as part of a \u201ccontinuing criminal enterprise<\/a>\u201d haven\u2019t been seized; only a slap on the wrist and a promise to \u201cdo better next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republished with permission from: Global Research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was first published July 21, 2010.\u00a0 When investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker broke the\u00a0story\u00a0four years ago that a DC-9 (N900SA) \u201cregistered to a company which once used as its address the hangar of Huffman Aviation, the flight school at the Venice, Florida Airport which trained both terrorist pilots who crashed planes into the World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-51448","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}