13-03-15 US banks are hooked on drugs!

According to the UN Commissioner on Crime Prevention, absent the cash flow from drug money laundering, the US financial system would have collapsed in 2009.  For US banks, laundering of narco-dollars is no longer a casual habit, but a survival skill.  jz
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  NEWS & POLITICS  

AlterNet / By Lynn Stuart Parramore

 168 COMMENTS

Elizabeth Warren Confronts the Atrocity of Drug Money Laundering by Big Banks

Americans have been waiting for a politician like Warren for nearly a century.

March 10, 2013  |  

 

 

 

Heavens to Betsy. Sen. Elizabeth Warren leapt from the gate of her first term pummeling Ben Bernanke on too-big-to-fail financial institutions. Then she demanded to know why American banks were never brought to trial. Finally, last Thursday, looking for all the world like a school principal called to sort out teenage hooligans, she queried regulators as to why HSBC bankers who launder money for drug lords and terrorists should go free. Quoth the senator:

"If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're going to jail. If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night.”

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http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/elizabeth-warren-confronts-atrocity-drug-money-laundering-big-banks?akid=10188.1117888.n-76bM&rd=1&src=newsletter809928&t=17