How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs ^

[TigerClaws]

On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, on the Gulf of Mexico, as the sun was setting. Mexican soldiers, waiting to intercept it, found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m. But something else – more important and far-reaching – was discovered in the paper trail behind the purchase of the plane by the Sinaloa narco-trafficking cartel.

During a 22-month investigation by agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and others, it emerged that the cocaine smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia, now part of the giant Wells Fargo.

[count-your-change]

The banks are fighting the drug war too but on the other side.

[TigerClaws]

Project Gunwalker making more sense?

[fella]

This aint nothing. The busiest days for the drug dealers are the days that the welfare system pays out each month. Our government is the biggest supporter of the drug industry there is through the welfare system. But the lap dogs of the demon-rats knows better than to disturb that cart.

[cowtowney]

Warren Buffet doesn’t talk about this much
I wonder why
How many banksters have gone to jail at Wells Fargo for this money laundering? (crickets)

[count-your-change]

Therein lies the problem, they can pay a big fine with some one elses money, promise not to get caught again and all is forgiven.
Banks: Too corrupt to fail.

[count-your-change]

Not more sense but less surprising.

[TigerClaws]

Let’s just say, “Coming to a town near you”:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10681249

[Tainan]

Same thing happened during the cocaine boom of the '80s. Big banks, especially the Bank of Nova Scotia, Scotia Bank, laundered cocaine money BIG TIME.

The many shopping centers started, and later abandoned, around the U.S.A. during the mid-late '80s were almost all funded thru this banks. Laundered cocaine money

[count-your-change]

This is ripe!

“In November 2010, a US justice department report said that US efforts to tackle gun-smuggling lacked focus, with not enough intelligence-sharing between US agencies and with their Mexican partners.”

I heard one DEA agent say on a t.v. program that the Mexican officials were so compromised there was nothing he would share with them that was not immediately known by the gangs.

[pepsionice]

If you sit and think about this....tons of money coming into your organization, which can’t readily move it via risky illegal means. So why would you NOT go to the banks and arrange for capital movement by legal means? I would even go as far as suggesting that the illegal guys could go and seek out naive bankers...telling them some story of connections to Senator such-and-such, and wanting money funneled to help someone’s election campaign. Based on everything I’ve seen in two years....I believe most bankers are dim-witted and unable to comprehend reality.

[Liz]

On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, on the Gulf of Mexico with 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m. But the paper trail behind the purchase of the plane by the Sinaloa narco-trafficking cartel exposed that the cocaine smugglers had bought the plane with money laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia...............now part of the giant Wells Fargo.

Yawn--ho hum---this is news? Most thinking Americans know the Mexican govt is a key ally to drug cartels----the cut of the drug money the federales are pocketing is stupendous. The fact that a US president is closer than a kiss to the Mexican president and that US banks are also in cahoots with the druggies is more food for thought........

[bcsco]

This is a ping list promoting Immigration Enforcement and Congressional Reform.
If you wish to be added or removed from this ping list, please contact me.

U. S. Legislative Immigration Update April 25, 2011

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Immigrants keep up the fight, even as Florida crack-down bills founder

Obama criticizes new Georgia immigration law

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Janet Napolitano clarifies immigration program

[Venturer]

People always speak of the failure of the war against drugs..

There has never been a war against drugs.It’s all eyewash.

They lock up the small fry while the big money launderers walk away clean.

Mexico is one of the most corrupt governments on the planet.
Our real war is on our own border, not in Afghanistan.

[WKUHilltopper]

Funny how no one has gone to jail on this...drug war, righttttttttttttttttt......

[no-to-illegals]

Wachovia, now part of the giant Wells Fargo.

Tip of the iceberg ... imho

[LoveUSA]

Funny also how I am penalized for making more than 5 transfers in one month from my savings to my checking account....but the big players can move billions without questioning.

[1010RD]

From the article:

Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year’s “deferred prosecution” has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine.

More shocking, and more important, the bank was sanctioned for failing to apply the proper anti-laundering strictures to the transfer of $378.4bn – a sum equivalent to one-third of Mexico’s gross national product – into dollar accounts from so-called casas de cambio (CDCs) in Mexico, currency exchange houses with which the bank did business.

“Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations,” said Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor. Yet the total fine was less than 2% of the bank’s $12.3bn profit for 2009. On 24 March 2010, Wells Fargo stock traded at $30.86 – up 1% on the week of the court settlement.

[oldasrocks]

I thought they conficated all property associated with drug transactions. Why can’t we conficate Wells Fargo?

[Liz]

MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT how cartels will get drugs into the US with our tax dollars.

Obama and Mexican Trucks
Townhall.com, April 12, 2011 | Phyllis Schlafly
FR Posted by Kaslin

Barack Obama's deal with the president of Mexico to allow Mexican trucks to carry their loads onto U.S. highways and roads is new evidence of his high-handed solo behavior that has become Standard Operating Procedure in the administration.

Obama's plan is dangerous and must be stopped by Congress and public protest. Obama's deal with President Felipe Calderon, announced on March 3, bypasses Congress, defies the wishes of the American people, and looks like the action of a Third World dictator who thinks representative government is a nuisance and can be ignored.

Congress made its wishes emphatically clear in 2007 when it voted to continue our ban on Mexican trucks. The House roll-call vote was 411 to 3, and the Senate's was 75 to 23.

Obama's deal is a direct attack on the jobs available to U.S. truck drivers because it helps big-business interests cut their costs by hiring cheaper Mexican drivers.

=============================================

Feds (taxpayers) Pay To Upgrade Mexican Trucks, US Trucks Not So Lucky
http://radioviceonline.com/ ^ | April 12, 2011 | Steve McGough
FR Posted by Biggirl

A story broke yesterday concerning the retrofit of more than 100 trucks from Mexico that do not meet United States environmental standards. Our federal government is paying to upgrade these trucks, yet when the state of California and the EPA set new rules for US-owned trucks, they fine companies who do not comply.

This post is not about the environment, it concerns how US trucking companies are treated by the federal and state government as compared to Mexican-owned rigs. From AzCentral.com. For air-quality regulators, the border creates a legal barrier.

State and federal agencies can’t force vehicles manufactured and bought in Mexico to comply with U.S. emissions rules, even though the trucks cross into this country.

So the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality tried a different approach, offering to pay Mexican truck owners to replace old mufflers with new catalytic converters that will reduce harmful diesel emissions by up to 30 percent. The project in effect circumvents the more lax Mexican rules about exhaust systems. (Excerpt) Read more at radioviceonline.com ...