Thu 7 Apr, 2011
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.
The authorities uncovered billions of dollars in wire transfers, traveller’s cheques and cash shipments through Mexican exchanges into Wachovia accounts. Wachovia was put under immediate investigation for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme. Of special significance was that the period concerned began in 2004, which coincided with the first escalation of violence along the US-Mexico border that ignited the current drugs war
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.
[...]
“For the time period of 1 May 2004 through 31 May 2007, Wachovia processed at least $$373.6bn in CDCs, $4.7bn in bulk cash” – a total of more than $378.3bn, a sum that dwarfs the budgets debated by US state and UK local authorities to provide services to citizens.
So, if I sell an ounce of coke I’ll get ten to twenty years in pound-me-in-the-ass federal prison. If I launder $365 billion dollars worth of drug money then I’d only have to pay $50 million dollar fine. And I’d pay the fine with the $54 billion dollar government bailout.
Goddammit, why can’t I run a fucking bank? I’m educated, I’m white, I can pretend to be doing God’s work. What do those assholes have that I don’t? Oh, that’s right. I’m not well connected.
2 Responses to “Want to know why drugs will never be legalized?
”
Leave a Reply
Tags: Drug Money, Goddamn I Wish I Was Rich, Nobody Goes To Jail, WachoviaComments (2)
ConcernedAmerican(formally concerned reader) says:
what this country needs is a good old fashion riot against these pricks
Ratbutt says:
And the reason they put the 1 ounce guy in prison is because he’s interferring with the govenment’s sales & profit from coke. Coke is big business ( did exxon make 384 billion after taxes ??? I don’t think so ) , and connected at the highest levels. Look at the rich viewpoint, Coke doesn’t hurt anyone other than suck the money and human dignity out of the user….plus they were given freedom of choice. Just Like Wallstreet….Vegas…. Tobacco…. alcohol….And dope…and any other legal easy money stealing scheme. Banks are very comfortable stealing money. Coke is just another money making vehicle. All these stealing money schemes operate on human weakness. The rich & powerful & controllers know but don’t give a shit because the money is just sooooo easy & huge.