With "protecting" you mean for example protecting the money laundering business in Mexico? Your perspective is too generalized, thus ultimately false. The case

With "protecting" you mean for example protecting the money laundering business in Mexico? Your perspective is too generalized, thus ultimately false. The case depends on the size of the bank. In the case of a famous British bank, the prosecution literally stated that they could not prosecute the bank because it would have been too much of a big impact on the economy. They got fined with the equivalent of a few weeks of profit, and who knows how much they ever profited from such illegal activities. Doesn't sound a protection racket to me.