Published in CommPro.biz 2013.04.25

 

HSBC Scot Free?

In study after study there is nothing to support the idea that “C” Suite occupants are irreplaceable. There’s an occasional example of a corporate leader’s departure negatively impacting a company’s performance: Steve Jobs’s voluntary ten-year absence from Apple left the company floundering; the jury is out at this point following his death in the fall of 2011 but the company is certainly not going to collapse. However, in all but a few cases there is an able individual in the wings ready to take over.

That makes a Department of Justice decision to give HSBC a get-out-of-jail-free card so outrageous. Listen to Attorney General Eric Holder earlier this month (2013.03.08) before a Senate Committee: "I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute -- if we do bring a criminal charge -- it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy," How dumb is that? What an insult to the tens of thousands of honest HSBC people to imagine that there are not lots of capable executives at HSBC who could step into the shoes of the boneheads who have turned an international financial giant into a gigantic criminal enterprise.

Let’s review: HSBC laundered carloads of money for the Sinaloa Drug Cartel, who are reported to have murdered thousands of people. HSBC created shams to help North Korea, Iran and others beat sanctions. HSBC financed Al Qaeda and a wide range of terrorist organizations along with mobsters in Russia, and they provided good old tax cheats a place to stash their earnings. That’s just a smattering of the flat-out criminal activity at HSBC. And the DOJ is letting them get away with it? Just have coffee in the same coffee shop as a terrorist and you’ll be grilled by the FBI. And HSBC gets a pass? Unbelievable!

Where does Holder think the “indications” of worldwide economic collapse if we jail these crooks is coming from? From the same HSBC lobbyists who pour bucks into the pockets of members of the Congress. Fortunately there are a few on the hill who are willing to stand up to these crooks, Carl Levin and Elizabeth Warren among others. Still, one estimate of support in the Senate for a break-up of the monster banks sees fewer than forty votes. Can you imagine how few members of the House would support such an action?

Everyone knows that’s what’s needed. The Dallas Fed chairman and at least one other Fed Board member have documented the need to break up the too-big-to-fail banks. These banks are the real threat to the world’s economic health. And until we treat criminal banksters for what they are, crooks, and put them in jail where crooks belong, they are going to keep right on breaking the law and risking another crash with their roulette wheel style of banking. Why not, when the top law enforcement officer in the United States gives them a pass?

HSBC – 

Banking Around The World

Little did we know that the HSBC slogan, “Bank as easily around the world as you do at home” was to be taken literally. That terrorists, drug cartels, even ordinary crooks and other slimy types could take advantage of the HSBC operations in the United States to convert their holdings to spanking new American dollar bills for use anywhere that currency is accepted – like everywhere!

Al Rajhi Bank in Saudi Arabia, reportedly a favorite of various terrorists, has also been a favorite of HSBC. Al Rajhi is said to have been the bank of choice for some of the 9/11 hijackers. This bank also handles funds for the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) considered a funder of terrorist activities and a source of support for suicide bombers. HSBC was happy to stock up Al Rajhi with Indian rupees. Hmmmm? Rupees perhaps that financed terrorist attacks in Mumbai?

Investigators uncovered information indicating that HSBC green-lighted the movement of billions in shady dollars into the United States from Mexico, Saudi Arabia etc., etc., etc., without the kind of oversight the law and common sense dictates. 

It would appear that HSBC engages in every shady aspect of banking that one could imagine. Laundering money for terrorists, providing currency du jure no matter where the bad guys want to blow something up. Giving the drug cartels lots of US dollars to enjoy the fruits of their murderous ways. Even Russian organized crime lords found HSBC to be a great help in laundering their cash.

Of course HSBC is into rigging LIBOR rates big time, impacting our credit cards, mortgages and literally every form of bank related credit. Don’t forget their role in rigging municipal bond auctions adding to the cost of public infrastructure from schools, to highways, to sewers, not to mention the taxes that pay off those bonds.

This is far beyond ethics. Like the crooks they serve, they should be prosecuted. And not just the little guys who make the dirty deals and rig the rates, but the guys at the top, the people who created this culture. It’s not organized crime without a “Boss” –or a “Bankster” as the Economist famously labeled them– calling the shots. HSBC executives, the folks at the top –gangsters with a “B”– enabled this massive criminal enterprise. And we all know where organized crime leaders belong, in the slammer. We’ll see if law enforcement authorities around the world will bring them to justice.