Bank of America and Wachovia caught Financing (billions) Mexico Gangs

[Ichingcarpenter]

They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, Mexican prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else.
The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp.,

Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue.

This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers -- including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.

The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years.



‘Blatant Disregard’
Wachovia admitted it didn’t do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion for Mexican-currency-exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. That’s the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history -- a sum equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html


And these banks give advice and bailouts from the government. The story is even worse than it
sounds as you dig deeper into it at the link due to the limit of my post

[The Magistrate]

1. Caught, Sir, But Hardly Punished

Executives should be doing hard time over this.

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. Hey Deals have got to be made

with the Banks and the Federal reserve.
We're in a debt crisis after bailing the banks out.








Why Is Obama Backing Bank of America in Court?



http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/why-obama-backing-bank-america-court

[Dappleganger]

2. But, but big corporations will self-regulate and don't need gov't oversight!

:sarcasm:

[Uncle Joe]

4. Self-delete due to technical error. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

5. Of course the banks are in to it.

The so called "War on Drugs" corrupts all fabric of American Society, you can't criminalize tens of millions of the American Citizens over what should be educational, medical and personal privacy issues without corrupting the police, business and all branches of government as well, not to mention serving to enrich and empower organized crime as well.

‘You’re Missing the Point’

Twenty million people in the U.S. regularly use illegal drugs, spurring street crime and wrecking families. Narcotics cost the U.S. economy $215 billion a year -- enough to cover health care for 30.9 million Americans -- in overburdened courts, prisons and hospitals and lost productivity, the department says.

I've seen estimates of 30 million.

The United Nations has been and is correct, the "War on Drugs" is a failure on multiple fronts, cannot be won and is counter productive to the stated goal of reducing drug use.

Thanks for the thread, Ichingcarpenter.

[jwirr]

6. Someone on here insisted I should not call them banksters. Why not? nt

[WinkyDink]

7. No bank gets away with this much without gov't, aka CIA, involvement.

I'm starting to believe that which I wanted never to: Mena, Arkansas.

But then, I'm convinced Bush41, former CIA chief, son of Prescott and father of G.W. "WMD" Bush, isn't called "Poppy" because he's a grandfather.

[Shagbark Hickory]

8. Words cannot express

my feelings on this.