Banking News, Rumors and Opinions Monday 9-21-2020
Massive FinCEN Leak Exposes How Biggest Western Banks Finance Drug Cartels, Terrorists & Mobsters
by Tyler Durden Sun, 09/20/2020 - 18:45
In what looks like one of the biggest leaks of private banking records since the Panama Papers, Buzzfeed News has published a lengthy investigation into how the world's biggest banks allow dirty money from organized criminals, drug cartels, and terror groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban to flow through their networks.
The "FinCEN Files", as Buzzfeed calls them, offer "a never-before-seen picture of corruption and complicity." A lengthy investigation by Buzzfeed and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists - the same group that handled the Mossack Fonseca leaks -
Instead of combating financial crime, the current system of requiring banks to report all suspicious transactions to FinCen simply allows money laundering to flourish, while ensuring that any enforcement will be of the 'whack-a-mole' variety.
These documents, compiled by banks, shared with the government, but kept from public view, expose the hollowness of banking safeguards, and the ease with which criminals have exploited them. Profits from deadly drug wars, fortunes embezzled from developing countries, and hard-earned savings stolen in a Ponzi scheme were all allowed to flow into and out of these financial institutions, despite warnings from the banks’ own employees.
Money laundering is a crime that makes other crimes possible. It can accelerate economic inequality, drain public funds, undermine democracy, and destabilize nations — and the banks play a key role. “Some of these people in those crisp white shirts in their sharp suits are feeding off the tragedy of people dying all over the world,” said Martin Woods, a former suspicious transactions investigator for Wachovia.
Laws that were meant to stop financial crime have instead allowed it to flourish. So long as a bank files a notice that it may be facilitating criminal activity, it all but immunizes itself and its executives from criminal prosecution. The suspicious activity alert effectively gives them a free pass to keep moving the money and collecting the fees.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, is the agency within the Treasury Department charged with combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. It collects millions of these suspicious activity reports, known as SARs. It makes them available to US law enforcement agencies and other nations’ financial intelligence operations. It even compiles a report called “Kleptocracy Weekly” that summarizes the dealings of foreign leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
What it does not do is force the banks to shut the money laundering down.
Buzzfeed's sources argue that the only way to fix the problem is to arrest the executives of banks that break laws.
"The bankers will never learn until you start putting silver bracelets on people...Think of the message you're sending to repeat offenders."
"These guys know what they're doing," said Thomas Nollner, a former regulator with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. “You break the law, you should go to jail, period."
Read Full post here: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/massive-fincen-leak-exposes-how-biggest-western-banks-finance-drug-cartels-terrorist
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Praying Medic :
The DOW was down more than 800 points today led by losses from major banks after news reports detailed how Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and others laundered $2 trillion in sketchy transactions linked to drug dealers, terrorists & human traffickers.
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Banks stocks sink after report of alleged widespread money-laundering activities
Published: Sept. 21, 2020 at 7:33 a.m. ET By Tomi Kilgore
Bank stocks took a broad hit in premarket trading Monday, after reports were published alleging many major banks continued doing business with customers despite suspecting money-laundering activities.
Bank shares slide on report of rampant money laundering
Monday, September 21, 2020 | The Associated Press
The financial sector was hit hard Monday following a report alleging that a number of banks, JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon among them, have continued to profit from illicit dealings with disreputable people and criminal networks despite previous warnings from regulators.
According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, leaked government documents show that the banks continued moving illicit funds even after being warned of potential criminal prosecutions. The documents were obtained by BuzzFeed News and shared with the ICIJ.
The report compounded a massive sell-off across global markets because of gloom and doom over COVID-19 infections and the economic damage from the pandemic.
The consortium reported that documents indicate that JPMorgan moved money for people and companies tied to the massive looting of public funds in Malaysia, Venezuela and the Ukraine. The bank also processed more than $50 million in payments over a decade for Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, according to the documents, which are known as the FinCEN Files.
Shares of JP Morgan tumbled 4.4%.
The consortium's investigation found the documents identify more than $2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017 that were flagged by financial institutions’ internal compliance officers as possible money laundering or other criminal activity, and $1.3 trillion of that activity took place at Deutsche Bank. Shares of Deutsche Bank dropped 7.7%.
Deutsche Bank has been under scrutiny for years. The bank, based in Frankfurt, Germany, agreed to pay the state of New York $150 million to settle claims that it broke compliance rules in its dealings with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein killed himself last August in a Manhattan federal jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
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Bix Weir
ALERT! Silver & Gold Slammed as Criminal Banks EXPOSED!!
Sep 21, 2020
On the news that the Commercial Banks have been laundering $Trillions of dollars in illegal transactions in full view of the regulators...
"They" decided to slam gold and silver prices one more time!
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Bix Weir
Silver Slammed by Shorts - What’s Next?
Sep 21, 2020
We have arrived at the End of Silver Manipulation...so "They" are giving Last Licks to any weak hands.