 Outrageous HSBC Settlement Proves the Drug War is a Joke
Ah Matt Taibbi... guaranteed unbiased reporting on banks.<p>It's not clear whether any employees knew they were facilitating money laundering. What HSBC has been found guilty of (and what they are being fined for) is lacking sufficient controls to detect money laundering activity. This is quite different to wilfully and knowingly assiting money laundering for drug cartels.<p>All sorts of businesses are part of the cash economy and pay in large amounts of cash on a daily and weekly basis. The worst critiscm you can level here is that a lowly-paid cashier was insufficiently trained to spot potentially dubious sources of cash that were being paid in.<p>Actually reading the whole article... it's just sensationalist drivel. There is no claim compliance officers were laundering money. In fact a compliance officer goes no where near money. Bonus clawback is in reponse to weak controls, not becuase they were in the employ of drug cartels.