One of the fringe benefits of being a bankster is that you’ll never get prosecuted for your crimes, and the government bails you out when you need it. From Matt Taibbi at taibbi.substack.com:
The “FinCen files” story reveals: getting caught doesn’t stop banks from taking dirty money. It may even encourage them
Sincere apologies to subscribers who received a fragmented article previously. This is the complete piece:
On December 11, 2012, U.S. Justice Department officials called a press conference in Brooklyn. The key players were once and future bank lawyer Lanny Breuer (disguised at the time as Barack Obama’s Assistant Attorney General in charge of the DOJ’s Criminal Division), and Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and future Attorney General. The duo revealed that HSBC, the largest bank in Europe, had agreed to a $1.9 billion settlement for years of money-laundering offenses.
An alphabet soup of regulatory agencies was represented that day, from the Justice Department, to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Treasury, the New York County District Attorney, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, among others.
