Bailed-Out Behemoth HSBC To Apologize At U.S. Senate Hearing For Terrorist Money Laundering

Anyone remember how many billions, HSBC, Europe's largest beggar bank, borrowed secretly from The Bernank at 0% during 2008-2009... ?

Or as an AIG counterparty via Goldman Sachs... $3.5 billion.

This is nothing new for HSBC, which has a sordid history in money-laundering, or global banking in general, which relies on hundreds of billions in illicit accounts as a regular and sometimes requisite (think crisis of 2008) staple of business.

Here are a couple of reminders:

• Wells Fargo (via Wachovia) and BofA were busted 2 years ago
• Mexican Drug Cartel Laundered Millions Via Bank Of America Into U.S. Horse Racing

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Bloomberg

HSBC will apologize at a July 17 U.S. Senate hearing for anti-money laundering controls that weren’t effective enough, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

“We failed to spot and deal with unacceptable behavior,” Chief Executive Officer Stuart Gulliver said in the note sent to employees yesterday, referring to the period between 2004 and 2010. “It is right that we be held accountable and that we take responsibility for fixing what went wrong.”

Europe’s largest bank will be questioned by U.S. lawmakers about two weeks after a record fine was levied against Barclays for rigging interest rates and its ex-CEO Robert Diamond was grilled in the U.K.  HSBC, which has doubled spending on compliance since 2010 to curtail illicit money transfers, may also face a “hefty fine,” Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. said.

“The real issue here is that the U.S. agencies have cited HSBC several times for being deficient at money-laundering practices as long ago as 2003,” Jim Antos, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Mizuho, said by telephone today. “Nine years later, the situation is apparently not yet under control.”

U.S. prosecutors may take criminal or civil enforcement measures involving the London-based bank amid an investigation into terrorist funding, HSBC said in February.

Continue reading...

Follow-up:

• Analysts Warn That HSBC’s Money-Laundering Fine In U.S. Could Amount To $1 Billion

Comments

[Diogene's Ghost]

WTF? Can anyone in government and the corporate fascist state even spell "jail time"?

[Doug Digglei]

Hongkong Shanghai Banking Concern (HSBC) began as a British bank in China to launder their opium money, can't say they were ever concerned with the law, won't shed a tear when tehy are shut down and their executives are jailed.

[george Archers]

Justass (justice)as if our zionist politicians care. Biggest drug runners are the CIA operatives. Don't kid yourselves--most corrupt are the politicians running this sick country.Does it bother Americans that a certain ethnic religious controls all the banks? NOPE!

[Backgammon]

Isn't HSBC the place where Joe Biden's son worked?

[citizen]

Wouldn't it just be easier to set up an offshore bank account for each congress critter? Nothing says 'Im sorry' like a 1 million in offshore assets.

[Cheyenne]

What?! HSBC apologizing to the U.S.?

It reminds me of another Anglo-American apology...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KniUNdVZvH4

[S. Gompers]

Reminds me of an old Aesop quote.

[Howard T. Lewis III]

The U.S. Senate will gratefully accept the apology because it will relieve the stress of doing anything responsible. The U.S. Senate is good at accepting graft. This relieves them of stress and all of that mewling that the wealthy expect. Incidental mewling is more acceptable and can be done in the privacy of a back room. The public prancing will always be with us but we must KNOW for whom the Senator mewls. I have never observed a senator pass up a good chance to privately mewl when the option was to be competent. Except for Kucinich, Dr. Paul and rep. Grayson, and a very few others.

[David D R]

HSBC did not receive a UK bailout and as such totally discredits this poorly written piece of junk. Reading it was a waste of 2 minutes of my life - utter fiction.

[Anon Patriot]

It’s July 12th, 2012 – Do YOU KNOW what time it is?
(It’s time to pass H.R. 459, and AUDIT THE ‘FED’!)

SIGN THE PETITION HERE: http://chooseliberty.org/auditrphf3.aspx?pid=0703

DONATE TO AUDIT THE ‘FED’, HERE:
http://www.chooseliberty.org/mailin/audit_donate1_mail.htm?i=CL090077-0703

PLEASE donate generously, if you wish to save your country from the money-changers, who also control the oil, and weapons manufacturing facilities, and who control the media, hollywood, the Pentagon, the CIA, CFR, and Congress.

[Cheyenne]

Analysts expect that HSBC’s money-laundering fine will amount to $1 billion:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/40a8c08e-cb6e-11e1-911e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz20Pxt5XfK

Even if that amount exceeds HSBC’s rake from illegal drug-peddling activities, the bank isn’t troubled in the least, since it can easily over the fine with the $3.5 billion backdoor bailout it received as an AIG counterparty:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/03/german_and_fren.html

That leaves $2.5 billion leftover for booger sugar and bonuses.

[Pitchfork]

Nicely put, Cheyenne. Putting it all in the proper context. What I wouldn't give to put you in the White House press pool... (Plus, "booger sugar" -- that's one I hadn't heard before.)

[SKINFLINT]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/05/16362485-cash-guns-34000-worth-of-cocaine-seized-from-conn-home In some morbid way this just pisses me off.

[SKINFLINT]

One neighbor states that you don't know who your neighbors are. Well you know where the banks are. They have signs lights and cameras.

[Howard T. Lewis III]

Take a billion dollars of depositors' savings? Big F'ing deal!!

This 'confession' is all a real sweet return on the congressional mewling to get depositors' money from banks as political contributions. If reality may take hold for just a moment, The Coutts Bank branch of the Bank of Scotland would be the FIRST PLACE I would LOOK to find deposits from revenues garnished from the international illicit drug trade, extortions, and LIBOR to finance international terrorism. If stopping terrorism, the very commercial trademarked Satanic(trademark) brand of terrorism that has plagued this planet for the past millennium or two is to be addressed, THIS is where any competent investigation should start and most likely will reach THE most satisfying result. LIBOR embezzlement, somewhere, for some purpose, that mewling just DOES NOT address has been going on for a minimum of a dozen years with U.S. Executive Branch participation, and the decay in the integrity of the system with this breach has yet to be addressed. A lot of rhetoric, paper work, obfuscation, mewling and pedophile lap dances for congressional vermin, but little else.

Most Americans don't want to hear about this foul stink, so let us throw out the trash and incinerate it where they boast their master reigns. Then we can elect a new congress without interference from the CFRtv or the Rothschild owned Associated Press. Since the UPI is owned by 'the moonies', we can just hope they come down off whatever they were fed to get that way. Feel with your hands to get the job done.