Tras el lavado de 800 millones de dólares, cómo hicieron para evitar la cárcel los ejecutivos de HSBC
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Well, let’s go on to HSBC. The banking giant has escaped indictment for laundering billions
of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and groups linked to al-Qaeda. The bank reportedly supplied
a billion dollars to a firm whose founder had ties to al-Qaeda and shipped billions
in cash from Mexico to the United States despite warnings the money was coming from drug cartels.
Earlier this year, a Senate investigation concluded that HSBC provided a, quote, "gateway
for terrorists to gain access to U.S. dollars and the U.S. financial system."
Despite evidence of wrongdoing, the Justice Department has allowed the bank to avoid prosecution
and pay a $1.9 billion fine. No top HSBC officials will face charges. While it’s reportedly
the largest penalty ever paid by a bank, the deal has come under wide criticism.
Officials reportedly agreed to seek the fine over concerns that criminal charges would have hurt the
global financial system. Loretta Lynch is U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
We are here today to announce the filing of
criminal charges against HSBC Bank, both its U.S. entity, HSBC U.S., and the parent HSBC
group, for its sustained and systemic failure to guard against the corruption of our financial
system by drug traffickers and other criminals and for evading U.S. sanctions law.
HSBC, as you know, is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, with affiliates
and personnel spanning the globe. Yet during the relevant time periods, they failed to
comply with the legal requirements incumbent on all U.S. financial institutions to have
in place compliance mechanisms and safeguards to guard against being used for money laundering.
HSBC has admitted its guilt to the four-count information filed today, which sets forth
two violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, a violation of the International Emergency Economic
Powers Act, or IEEPA, and violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act. As part of its
resolution of these charges, HSBC has agreed to forfeit $1.256 billion, the largest forfeiture
amount ever by a financial institution for a compliance failure.
That was U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch. Meanwhile, HSBC Group Chief Executive Stuart
Gulliver said in a statement, quote, "We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have
said we are profoundly sorry for them." He added the bank had, quote, "taken extensive
and concerted steps to put in place the highest standards for the future."
News of HSBC’s fine comes as three low-level traders were arrested in London as part of
an international investigation into 16 international banks accused of rigging a key global interest
rate used in contracts worth trillions of dollars. The London Interbank Offered Rate,
known as Libor, is the average interest rate at which banks can borrow from each other.
Some analysts say it defines the cost of money. The benchmark rate sets the borrowing costs
of everything from mortgages to student loans to credit card accounts.
Well, for more on the latest bank scandals, we’re joined by Matt Taibbi, contributing
editor for Rolling Stone magazine. His latest book is Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians,
and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History.
Now, how did Forbes put it, Matt? "What’s a bank got to do to get into some real trouble
around here?" Exactly, exactly. And what’s amazing about
that is that’s Forbes saying that. I mean, universally, the reaction, even in—among
the financial press, which is normally very bank-friendly and gives all these guys the
benefit of the doubt, the reaction is, is "What do you have to do to get a criminal
indictment?" What HSBC has now admitted to is, more or less, the worst behavior that
a bank can possibly be guilty of. You know, they violated the Trading with the Enemy Act,
the Bank Secrecy Act. And we’re talking about massive amounts of money. It was $9
billion that they failed to supervise properly. These crimes were so obvious that apparently
the cartels in Mexico specifically designed boxes to put cash in so that they would fit
through the windows of HSBC teller windows. So, it was so out in the open, these crimes,
and there’s going to be no criminal prosecution whatsoever, which is incredible.
And emails found where bank officials were instructing officials in Iran and in some
other countries at how best to hide their efforts to move money into their system?
Exactly, yeah, and that’s true at HSBC, and apparently we have a very similar scandal
involving another British bank, Standard Chartered, which also paid an enormous fine recently
for laundering money for—through Iran. This, again, comes on the heels of the Libor scandal,
which has already caught up two major British banks—the Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays.
So, you have essentially all of the major British banks now are inveigled in these enormous
scandals. We have a couple of arrests, you know, today involving low-level people in
the Libor thing, but it doesn’t look like any major players are going to be indicted
criminally for any of this. And this whole argument that the bank is too
big to indict because of the threat to the world financial system, most people don’t
know that HSBC stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. It’s a British bank
that goes back to the early days of British colonialism in Asia.
Sure. And is it too big to be indicted?
The amazing thing about that rationale is that it’s exactly the opposite of the truth.
The message that this sends to everybody, when banks commit crimes and nobody is punished
for it, is that you can do it again. You know, if there’s no criminal penalty for committing
even the most obvious kinds of crimes, that tells everybody, investors all over the world,
that the banking system is inherently unsafe. And so, the message is, this is not a move
to preserve the banking system at all. In fact, it’s incredibly destructive. It undermines
the entire world confidence in the banking system. It’s an incredible decision that,
again, is met with surprise even with—by people in the financial community.
On Tuesday, Thomas Curry, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the lead
regulator for HSBC in the U.S., defended the settlement.
These actions send a strong message to the bank and to the financial services industry
to make compliance with the law a priority to safeguard their institutions from being
misused in ways that threaten American lives. That’s Thomas Curry, head of the Office
of the Comptroller of the Currency. It seems like a lot of people who are in prison right
now—low-level thieves, criminals, drug launderers, people who have been accused of working with
al-Qaeda—perhaps could appeal their convictions now and get out of jail.
Right. Right, yeah, exactly. I was in court yesterday, in criminal court in Brooklyn.
I saw somebody come out of—come into court who had just been overnight in jail for walking
from one subway car to another in front of a policeman. You can do real time in jail
in America for all kinds of ridiculous offenses, for taking up two subway seats in New York
City, if you fall asleep in the subway. People go to jail for that all the time in this country,
for having a marijuana stem in your pocket. There are 50,000 marijuana possession cases
in New York City alone every year. And here we have a bank that laundered $800 million
of drug money, and they can’t find a way to put anybody in jail for that. That sends
an incredible message not just to the financial sector but to everybody. It’s an obvious,
clear double standard, where one set of people gets to break the rules as much as they want
and another set of people can’t break any rules at all without going to jail. And I
just don’t see how they don’t see this problem.
Well, Matt, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer outlined some of HSBC’s alleged drug
cartel ties. From 2006 to 2010, the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico,
the Norte del Valle cartel in Colombia and other drug traffickers laundered at least
$881 million in illegal narcotics trafficking proceeds through HSBC Bank USA.
These traffickers didn’t have to try very hard. They would sometimes deposit hundreds of thousands of
dollars in cash in a single day into a single account, using boxes, as Loretta said, designed
to fit the precise dimensions of the tellers’ windows in HSBC’s Mexico branches.
Matt, this is like Monopoly, the board game, all over again, you know? Get out of jail
free, you know. Yeah.
Instead of $50, you pay $1.9 billion, but you’re still getting out of jail free.
And this fits in the—in with the pattern of the entire financial crisis. $1.9 billion
sounds like a lot of money, and it definitely is. It’s a record settlement. No bank has
ever paid this much money before. But it’s about two months’ worth of profits for HSBC.
It’s not going to cripple this bank. It’s not even going to hurt them that badly for
this year. It fits in line with the Goldman Sachs settlement in the Abacas case, which
was hailed at the time as a record settlement. It was $575 million. But that was about 1/20th
of what they got just through the AIG bailout. So, this is not a lot of money for these people.
It sounds like a lot of money to the layperson, but for the crimes they committed, getting
away with just money—and it’s not even their own money, it’s not their personal
money, it’s the shareholders’ money—it’s incredible. It really—it literally is a
get-out-of-jail-free card. And, of course, the way that big banks these
days can borrow money from the U.S. Fed for no interest—
For free. For free.
Free. Basically, they can just take money from the
government and pay the government back. What does the Justice Department, what does
the Obama administration, gain by not actually holding HSBC accountable?
You know, I think—I’ve asked myself that question numerous times. I really believe—and
I think a lot of people believe this—that the Obama administration sincerely accepts
the rationale that to aggressively prosecute crimes committed by this small group of too-big-to-fail
banks would undermine confidence in the global financial system and that they therefore have
to give them a pass on all sorts of things, because we are teetering on the edge of a problem,
and if any one of them were to fall out, it would cause a domino effect of losses
and catastrophes like the Lehman Brothers business. And I think they’re genuinely
afraid of that. And so, that’s the only legitimate explanation that you can possibly
assign to this situation, because, as we know, Wall Street abandoned the Obama administration
this year when it came to funding in the election. They heavily supported Mitt Romney and didn’t
give Obama much money at all. We have to break, and when we come back, we’re
going to ask you more about Libor and also your piece, "Jim DeMint," who’s stepping
down in the Senate, "The Fireman Ed of Politics," you write. We’re talking to Matt Taibbi,
contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine.