Free Republic

Govt outlines HSBC ties to drug money laundering WASHINGTON (AP) — British bank HSBC violated the Bank Secrecy Act in connection with the laundering of money from narcotics drug traffickers in Mexico and intentionally allowed prohibited transactions with Iran and other nations that have been under sanctions, the Justice Department alleged Tuesday. In court papers filed in federal court in Brooklyn, the federal government said the case against HSBC is related to the laundering of proceeds from narcotics trafficking via the Black Market Peso Exchange — a method by which money launderers convert cash narcotics dollars into Colombian pesos by...

Barack Obama may consider introducing a tax on carbon emissions to help cut the U.S. budget deficit after winning a second term as president, according to HSBC Holdings Plc. A tax starting at $20 a metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent and rising at about 6 percent a year could raise $154 billion by 2021, Nick Robins, an analyst at the bank in London, said today in an e-mailed research note, citing Congressional Research Service estimates. “Applied to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2012 baseline, this would halve the fiscal deficit by 2022,” Cap-and-trade legislation stalled in the U.S. Senate after...

No officials offer to return bank's blood moneyThe fallout from the HSBC money laundering scandal continues to reverberate around the globe, but U.S. Congress members apparently are in no hurry to return millions of dollars they have received from the scandal-plagued bank. WND, which originally broke the story on the HSBC debacle, conducted an analysis of Federal Election Commission records specific to the company political action committee’s generosity toward Congress. The investigation centered upon two congressional panels with primary oversight of the industry: The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs, and the House Committee on Financial Services. Since...

Two New Jersey lawmakers tasked with federal oversight of the banking industry are keeping quiet about whether they will return “blood money” donated to their campaign war chests. HSBC executives already have appeared before the U.S. Senate for the bank’s global role in a drug-gang and terrorist money laundering scandal. However, The Revered Review is now pressing Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J) and Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J./5th District) about what they plan on doing with the tens of thousands of combined dollars that the scandal-plagued bank’s political action committee has given them... TRR analyzed Federal Election Commission records specific to the...

2012/07/18 03:59 KST HSBC apologizes for lax controls on transactions with N. Korea, others WASHINGTON, July 17 (Yonhap) -- Executives from HSBC Holdings admitted Tuesday that the largest European bank had some loopholes in controlling transactions involving North Korea and other "rogue states." A group of top HSBC officials appeared at a U.S. Senate hearing a day after the Senate released a 330-page report accusing the London-based bank of exposing the U.S. financial system to North Korea, Iran, and Cuba as well as terrorists groups and Mexican drug cartels. HSBC had transactions with North Korea in breach of U.S. sanctions...

Bank regulators to face tough questions over HSBC money laundering Mon Jul 16, 2012 9:57am IST * Connections to Iran, Mexico under the spotlight * HSBC crackdown on money laundering riddled with lapses * Senate investigation expected to guide Treasury, Justice By Carrick Mollenkamp July 16 (Reuters) - Current and former bank regulators are likely to face tough questions by a U.S. Senate panel Tuesday about their agency's oversight of HSBC Holdings Plc's efforts to stop illegal money flows between its U.S. and international offices, according to people familiar with the situation. The Senate investigation is expected to be a...

Libor rates are calculated for different currencies each day under the auspices of the British Bankers' Association, using quotes that are submitted by banks on a panel, based on the banks' estimated borrowing costs. More than $800 trillion in securities and loans are linked to Libor, including $350 trillion in swaps and $10 trillion in loans, including auto and home loans, according to the CFTC. No other banks or individuals have been charged with wrongdoing. Banks that have disclosed they are being investigated include Citigroup Inc., C +3.72% Deutsche Bank AG, DBK.XE +2.02% HSBC Holdings HBC +1.00% PLC, J.P. Morgan...

PayPal implicated in criminal activity By Julio Severo WND, which I consider the best conservative newssite in the world, ran an explosive headline yesterday: PayPal implicated in bank fraud. Who could imagine: PayPal, which moved to exterminate my account, has now become the focus of a money-laundering scandal. Don Hank, the owner of Laigle’s Forum, had this to say about the WND headline: “Now link this story with the way PayPal heavy-handedly refused service to Julio Severo because his web site opposes gay marriage, and you can see how radical social agendas and their implementation are actually a symptom of a...

NEW YORK – A former employee of HSBC in New York has 1,000 pages of customer account records he claims are evidence of an international money-laundering scheme involving hundreds of billions of dollars by the global banking giant, which reportedly is under investigation by a U.S. Senate committee. John Cruz has delivered to WND customer account records he says he pulled from the HSBC computer system before he was fired. Cruz was terminated Feb. 17, 2010, after two years at HSBC for “poor performance,” but he contends he was let go because senior management didn’t want to him to pursue...

HSBC said on a conference call this morning it would cut 30,000 by the end of 2013. "There will be further job cuts," Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver told Reuters. "Another 25,000 roles will be eliminated in addition to the 5,000 already announced." The London-based financial company reported flat first half revenue of $35.7 billion, with weakness in Europe offsetting growth in emerging markets. Naturally job cuts will be focused on Europe and the U.S., with the possibility of hiring in emerging markets. Laying off 30,000 amounts to a 10% workforce reduction.

The chief executive of HSBC in the US has been threatened with sanctions by a New York judge because of a row over a foreclosured home. A judge has issued an order claiming HSBC and a law firm deliberately misled the court by filing false and “robo-signed” documents in an attempt to foreclose on the house of a Brooklyn resident

Two separate lawsuits filed in federal court in Manhattan Wednesday allege that banks J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!jpm/quotes/nls/jpm (JPM 37.60, +0.06, +0.16%) and HSBC Holdings Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!hbc/quotes/nls/hbc (HBC 52.36, +0.37, +0.71%) manipulate the price of silver futures by "amassing enormous short positions." The suits allege that by managing giant positions in silver futures and options, the banks have influenced the prices of silver on the New York Stock Exchanges' Comex Exchange since early 2008. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been in the midst of a high-profile, two-year-old investigation of the silver market. J.P. Morgan declined to comment on...

NEW YORK, Oct 27 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA.L) were hit with two lawsuits on Wednesday by investors who accused them of conspiring to drive down silver prices, and reaping an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal profits. The banks, among the world's largest, were accused of manipulating the market for COMEX silver futures and options contracts from the first half of 2008 by amassing huge "short" positions in silver futures contracts that are designed to profit when prices fall. "Defendants reaped hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of...

Metal$ are in the pits Posted: 2:10 AM, April 11, 2010 There is no silver lining to the activities of JPMorgan Chase and HSBC in the precious-metals market here and in London, says a 40-year veteran of the metal pits. The banks, which do the Federal Reserve's bidding in the metals markets, have long been the government's lead actors in keeping down the prices of gold and silver, according to a former Goldman Sachs trader working at the London Bullion Market Association. Maguire was scheduled to testify last week before the Commodities Futures Trade Commission, which is looking into the...

The shady Iranian fundraiser who for years donated lucrative sums to top Democrats—including the president, vice president and secretary of state—has pleaded guilty to a major bank-fraud scheme that could land him in jail for nearly two decades.Disgraced Democratic money man Hassan Nemazee admitted this week that he defrauded three financial institutions out of nearly $300 million in loan proceeds by falsifying documents and signatures to show he had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of collateral. The Ivy League-educated crook then used the proceeds to donate big bucks to the campaigns of federal, state and local candidates. Among them...

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- New York businessman and prominent Democratic fund- raiser Hassan Nemazee was indicted Monday for allegedly defrauding three banks out of $292 million in loans. Nemazee, 59 years old, was charged with aggravated identity theft and three counts of bank fraud in the indictment. Each bank fraud count carries a term of up to 30 years in prison. A lawyer for Nemazee didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Nemazee, who was involved in various presidential campaigns and once served as finance chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was initially charged criminally in August related...

Note: The following text is a quote: Hassan Nemazee Pleads Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to $292 Million Bank Fraud PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that HASSAN NEMAZEE pleaded guilty today to charges of defrauding Bank of America, N.A. ("BofA"), Citibank, N.A. ("Citibank"), HSBC Bank USA, N.A. ("HSBC"), and a longtime friend and business associate of a total of more than $290 million in loan proceeds. NEMAZEE entered his guilty plea before United States District Judge SIDNEY H. STEIN in Manhattan federal court. According to the superseding Information, filed today, to...

HSBC: data on 24,000 Swiss account holders stolen By FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writer GENEVA – Information on 24,000 HSBC customers with Swiss accounts has been stolen, the British bank said Thursday, potentially exposing large numbers of international clients to prosecution by tax authorities in their home countries. A former IT employee of Swiss subsidiary HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA, identified by French authorities as Herve Falciani, stole the information between late 2006 and early 2007, the bank said. The accounts, held by individuals worldwide, were all opened before October 2006 and some 9,000 have since been closed. "We deeply...

Another sign of the incessant creeping in of eurosocialist attitudes here in the United States thanks to Obama, Pelosi & Reid.

Michael Geoghegan, the chief executive of HSBC, has said he fears the global economy faces a second downturn. The comments from Mr Geoghegan, who leads one of the world’s largest banks, helped to push the FTSE 100 down in early trading by six points, or 0.1pc. In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Geoghegan. who is moving his office from London to Hong Kong, said that HSBC was likely to delay expansion plans because of the economic outlook. “Is this a V recovery or a W? [I think] it’s the latter. [If I’m right], we have to be very...