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FinCEN Files: HSBC moved Ponzi scheme millions despite warning

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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by statman:
    JP Morgan was also involved in mafia money laundering of over $1bn and yet is barely mentioned.
    That's different - JP Morgan is an American bank.

    I don't think HSBC is worse than other banks, and I think their China strategy looks promising - except they have alienated everyone - UK, China, HK, US.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CFYv_DQAV-i/

  2. #22

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    OK, so all is good at HSBC and we should continue to smile and wave at the dragons every time we pass 'em? My problem with them is the number of times they get their collective arses hauled in and fined.

    Shareholders and clients of a bank just do not want to see this sort of press. But it's ok... Lay off a few more old employees, send out some PR about ESG and Fintech and people will forget about them for a few weeks..


    Four days before Pacheco was beaten to death, compliance officers at the global banking giant HSBC raised a warning about millions of dollars flowing into a big-dollar account in Hong Kong controlled by the scammers. It was at least the third in a series of so-called suspicious activity reports that the bank’s internal watchdogs had lodged about WCM over several months.

    Yet HSBC continued to handle the Ponzi network’s massive flow of dirty money into — and out of — its accounts at the bank.

    HSBC was profiting from an international criminal scheme even while on probation for having served murderous drug cartels and other criminals. HSBC had admitted to U.S. prosecutors in 2012 that it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world, including at least $881 million controlled by the notorious Sinaloa cartel and other Mexican drug gangs.
    ICIJ.org: HSBC moved vast sums of dirty money after paying record laundering fine.


    https://www.icij.org/investigations/...undering-fine/

  3. #23

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    And yeah, what the fuck do we know about how compliance works..

    Although providing only a partial view of HSBC’s suspicious activity reports, the records show that between 2013 and 2017, HSBC’s U.S. compliance staff, who are charged with monitoring customer activity, filed reports lacking crucial customer information on 16 shell companies that had processed nearly $1.5 billion in more than 6,800 transactions through the bank’s Hong Kong operations alone. More than $900 million of that total involved shell companies linked to alleged criminal networks, according to an analysis by ICIJ and its media partners.

    In interviews with ICIJ and BuzzFeed News, more than a dozen former HSBC compliance officers expressed deep concerns about the bank’s anti-money-laundering program, even during its probationary period. Compliance officers said that the bank did not give them enough time to meaningfully investigate suspicious transactions and that branches outside the U.S. often ignored requests for crucial customer information. They said they were treated as a second-class workforce within the bank, with little power to shut down problematic accounts.
    Last edited by shri; 23-09-2020 at 05:47 AM.

  4. #24

  5. #25

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    The banks are just being used as a smokescreen here... All the files show are suspicious activity duly reported to the authorities. The real story (again) is of the outright hypocrisy of the UK government in lecturing tax havens and other light touch regimes while hosting one of the money laundering capitals of the world and doing nothing to require closer tabs on sources of wealth etc.

    pin and statman like this.

  6. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by statman:
    Lots of people commenting on here who clearly know nothing about Compliance in banking. For a start, HSBC didn't do anything wrong here so there won't be a fine to pay for this latest 'news'. All banks are required to file SAR's / STR's when they see activity that is deemed as suspicious and are normally not allowed to block the customers transactions or exit their accounts unless they are allowed to do so by the law enforcement agencies, so the fact that these transactions were found and reported to the authorities shows that the correct process was followed.

    Some law enforcement agencies actually WANT the banks to continue actioning transactions so that they can build up a bigger case. It's not like simple credit card fraud where the transactions are stopped at source.

    This is really a non-story and a poor piece of journalism. I'd be much more concerned if the bank's DID NOT raise the SAR's!!!
    I know nothing about banking compliance (and have a low view of journalistic standards) so with that in mind are you really saying HSBC did nothing wrong here?

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by hullexile:
    I know nothing about banking compliance (and have a low view of journalistic standards) so with that in mind are you really saying HSBC did nothing wrong here?
    No, but the fact is that HSBC did indeed report suspicious activities to the government and the government did nothing with it - they didn't even tell HSBC to stop handling these transactions. It's not that HSBC didn't do anything wrong, but they weren't hiding anything or being deceitful.

  8. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by eightfivetwo:
    No, but the fact is that HSBC did indeed report suspicious activities to the government and the government did nothing with it - they didn't even tell HSBC to stop handling these transactions. It's not that HSBC didn't do anything wrong, but they weren't hiding anything or being deceitful.
    So they knowingly but openly did wrong? Am I being unfair?

  9. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by hullexile:
    I know nothing about banking compliance (and have a low view of journalistic standards) so with that in mind are you really saying HSBC did nothing wrong here?
    The banks in the leak reported the suspicious activity to the authorities, which is what they are supposed to do. The banks are normally not allowed to stop transactions or do anything to tip the customer off about their activity coming under suspicion, which is why they would have continued to allow the money to flow through the system. They would only exit the customer and stop transactions once they are told to by the authorities and this would normally only be when enough evidence has been obtained to prosecute.

    Think about it......you can see that a criminal enterprise is performing dodgy activity in your bank and you can either choose to exit them, knowing that they will then just go and open up accounts and do the same thing in another bank, or you can report to the authorities and build up a strong case against them by gathering evidence of their criminal activities.

    Which one do you think is the best way to handle this kind of scenario? It would have actually been a bigger problem if the banks hadn't reported this to the authorities and just continued banking them, or exited them without reporting the activity and leaving the problem to someone else.
    hullexile likes this.

  10. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by statman:
    Lots of people commenting on here who clearly know nothing about Compliance in banking. For a start, HSBC didn't do anything wrong here so there won't be a fine to pay for this latest 'news'. All banks are required to file SAR's / STR's when they see activity that is deemed as suspicious and are normally not allowed to block the customers transactions or exit their accounts unless they are allowed to do so by the law enforcement agencies, so the fact that these transactions were found and reported to the authorities shows that the correct process was followed.

    Some law enforcement agencies actually WANT the banks to continue actioning transactions so that they can build up a bigger case. It's not like simple credit card fraud where the transactions are stopped at source.

    This is really a non-story and a poor piece of journalism. I'd be much more concerned if the bank's DID NOT raise the SAR's!!!
    Most guys only see the sensational part of reports done on banks.. remember the outrage everyone had at that posting by a guy who's account was blocked and locked up because he was receiving money suspiciously ... that's the other side of the coin that everyone seems to expect HSBC to instantly tell the rights from the wrongs..
    Sage likes this.