6 ms·

>Prosecutors in New York said the company operated as “the financial hub for cyber criminals around the world.” Well fortunately for the cyber criminals, I hav

by alva 10y ago

>Prosecutors in New York said the company operated as “the financial hub for cyber criminals around the world.” Well fortunately for the cyber criminals, I have some great suggestions for alternative banking solutions. Plus! Your co-conspirators will almost definitely never face a day in jail. Think you will have to pay for expensive flights to Switzerland to open your account? Save some of that hard earned cash and just take a walk to your nearest high street. HSBC 2012 - $1.9b fine for laundering Mexican drug money. JPMorgan - $13b aggressive, irresponsible mortgage lending Bank of America - $16b ditto Libor rate fixing - $3b, multiple banks Forex rigging - $2b, multiple banks BNP Paribas - $9b, violating international sanctions PPI - £23b, multiple banks Around $240b worth of fines between 2009-2013. Some of which can be put down to incompetence. Most of which can be put down to outright criminal fraud. Play it fair with sentencing please.

qaq 10y ago
HSBC got slapped hard Wachovia laundered >100 billion and got slapped with 160 mil. fine
- jackgavigan 10y ago
  There's a notable trend of US companies getting off lightly in comparison with the punishment and fines meted out to their foreign peers by the US authorities.
branchless 10y ago
Beat me to it. The problem these guys had is they are not paying protection money in the form of job offers to former regulators and politicians. Banking needs a total reform and right now. These guys are circumventing our legal systems and our democracies. They are utter filth. Their rentier activity adds nothing and takes from productive work.
- eternalban 10y ago
  > protection money That's not the issue. The issue is power. The above do not threaten anyone's foundational power base. BC also doesn't challenge the establishment in a foundational sense (in that it is designed to leave an undeniable digital trail). These guys were completely off the global plantation. They will be made an example for others.
rayiner 10y ago
To pick one example, what did JPM do that involved "outright criminal fraud?" Give specific examples that a jury would convict for, keeping in mind that knowledge and intent must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. If I had to guess, what made this case easy was the fact that the guy left the country under circumstances where it could be inferred he know he was facilitating illegal transactions. That was the key element missing in, for example , the HSBC prosecution.
- revelation 10y ago
  Here is what made this guys case easy: "faced a life term before pleading guilty just days before a trial, striking a deal" I don't see a jury and it wasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt either. He simply decided a plea deal was a more likely better outcome. So how is it that prosecutors can't conjure up a single case against a top exec, slap together a long list of charges and get a plea deal out? This is pretty much their job description nowadays. Juries don't enter into it.
  - tajen 10y ago
    I'd approve putting CEOs and hierarchies of managers in jail, I mean as long as jail is applied to the lowly anyway. I wonder what's the point where it starts hurting the economy. After all, having 6% of the black population, 2% of Hispanic and 1% of the white population [1] must have significant effect on the industry; but if managers faced a chance of an exit through jail, would it hurt the economy? After all, they don't "work", in the sense of transforming matter. They make decisions - if 1% were in jail, would we lack people who take decisions? People like the CEO of VW make unlawful decisions, killing millions. Would it give room to renew the elites, especially with people who have a sense of responsibility? [1] http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf
  - rayiner 10y ago
    You can't bring a case if you don't think you can get a jury conviction. It's unethical. Prosecutors brought two Bear Stearns executives to trial near the beginning of the financial crisis and they were acquitted.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
The trick? Be big. Be very big. Be rich. Hold your employees and whole economies as hostages. Remember to look sad at your congressional hearing...
rtpg 10y ago
There's this trope about us choosing to not throw people in jail but its just a consequence of needing real evidence against a person. Holder made some ckmment to the line of " if we had the evidence , people at the DOJ would be rushing to charge. Throwing a Wall St exec in jail is a career-making case" (edit: actual quote https://mobile.twitter.com/lauraolin/status/727988087414984705 https://mobile.twitter.com/lauraolin/status/7279880874149847... ) The interests are totally aligned for the DOJ to crush any execs found of willful wrongdoing
- samstave 10y ago
  Holder will be known as one of the most corrupt pieces of shit in the history of the US government.
- MaysonL 10y ago
  How come we could find that evidence for all sorts of people, up to and including CEOs, after the S&L crisis? DOJ chose not to prosecute because of what? The way to do it is to pick a small fish, roll him, roll the guys he implicates, etc. Worked then, would have worked now.
  - chishaku 10y ago
    > How come we could find that evidence for all sorts of people, up to and including CEOs, after the S&L crisis? The perspective of Bill Black, senior regulator and litigator during the S&L crisis: "So at the peak of the savings and loans crisis — again, one-seventieth the size of this crisis — of those 2,300 total FBI agents, 1,000 of them were working on just one industry, the savings and loan industry, to produce that incredible wave of success that we had. As recently as fiscal year 2007, there were only 120 FBI agents assigned to mortgage fraud, and that’s despite the fact that the FBI itself, in September 2004, warned that there was an epidemic of mortgage fraud — ‘epidemic’ was their word — and predicted that it would cause a financial crisis — ‘crisis’ was their word — unless it was stopped." "And what people don’t understand about the criminal justice system is there are roughly a million people employed in it — and of course, millions incarcerated in it. But of the million employees, 2,300 do elite white-collar investigations. And of those 2,300, you have to contrast that to the number of industries in the United States, which is over 1,300." http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/17/hundreds-of-wall-street-execs-went-to-prison-during-the-last-fraud-fueled-bank-crisis/ http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/17/hundreds-of-wall-street-exe...
adrenalinelol 10y ago
You're missing a few banks from that list, ALL large investment banks had their hands in the cookie jar for CDO/CDS fraud. (Goldman, MS, etc...)

by alva 10y ago

qaq 10y ago

HSBC got slapped hard Wachovia laundered >100 billion and got slapped with 160 mil. fine

jackgavigan 10y ago
There's a notable trend of US companies getting off lightly in comparison with the punishment and fines meted out to their foreign peers by the US authorities.

branchless 10y ago

Beat me to it. The problem these guys had is they are not paying protection money in the form of job offers to former regulators and politicians. Banking needs a total reform and right now. These guys are circumventing our legal systems and our democracies. They are utter filth. Their rentier activity adds nothing and takes from productive work.

eternalban 10y ago
> protection money That's not the issue. The issue is power. The above do not threaten anyone's foundational power base. BC also doesn't challenge the establishment in a foundational sense (in that it is designed to leave an undeniable digital trail). These guys were completely off the global plantation. They will be made an example for others.

rayiner 10y ago

To pick one example, what did JPM do that involved "outright criminal fraud?" Give specific examples that a jury would convict for, keeping in mind that knowledge and intent must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. If I had to guess, what made this case easy was the fact that the guy left the country under circumstances where it could be inferred he know he was facilitating illegal transactions. That was the key element missing in, for example , the HSBC prosecution.

revelation 10y ago
Here is what made this guys case easy: "faced a life term before pleading guilty just days before a trial, striking a deal" I don't see a jury and it wasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt either. He simply decided a plea deal was a more likely better outcome. So how is it that prosecutors can't conjure up a single case against a top exec, slap together a long list of charges and get a plea deal out? This is pretty much their job description nowadays. Juries don't enter into it.
- tajen 10y ago
  I'd approve putting CEOs and hierarchies of managers in jail, I mean as long as jail is applied to the lowly anyway. I wonder what's the point where it starts hurting the economy. After all, having 6% of the black population, 2% of Hispanic and 1% of the white population [1] must have significant effect on the industry; but if managers faced a chance of an exit through jail, would it hurt the economy? After all, they don't "work", in the sense of transforming matter. They make decisions - if 1% were in jail, would we lack people who take decisions? People like the CEO of VW make unlawful decisions, killing millions. Would it give room to renew the elites, especially with people who have a sense of responsibility? [1] http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf
- rayiner 10y ago
  You can't bring a case if you don't think you can get a jury conviction. It's unethical. Prosecutors brought two Bear Stearns executives to trial near the beginning of the financial crisis and they were acquitted.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

The trick? Be big. Be very big. Be rich. Hold your employees and whole economies as hostages. Remember to look sad at your congressional hearing...

rtpg 10y ago

There's this trope about us choosing to not throw people in jail but its just a consequence of needing real evidence against a person. Holder made some ckmment to the line of " if we had the evidence , people at the DOJ would be rushing to charge. Throwing a Wall St exec in jail is a career-making case" (edit: actual quote https://mobile.twitter.com/lauraolin/status/727988087414984705 https://mobile.twitter.com/lauraolin/status/7279880874149847... ) The interests are totally aligned for the DOJ to crush any execs found of willful wrongdoing

samstave 10y ago
Holder will be known as one of the most corrupt pieces of shit in the history of the US government.
MaysonL 10y ago
How come we could find that evidence for all sorts of people, up to and including CEOs, after the S&L crisis? DOJ chose not to prosecute because of what? The way to do it is to pick a small fish, roll him, roll the guys he implicates, etc. Worked then, would have worked now.
- chishaku 10y ago
  > How come we could find that evidence for all sorts of people, up to and including CEOs, after the S&L crisis? The perspective of Bill Black, senior regulator and litigator during the S&L crisis: "So at the peak of the savings and loans crisis — again, one-seventieth the size of this crisis — of those 2,300 total FBI agents, 1,000 of them were working on just one industry, the savings and loan industry, to produce that incredible wave of success that we had. As recently as fiscal year 2007, there were only 120 FBI agents assigned to mortgage fraud, and that’s despite the fact that the FBI itself, in September 2004, warned that there was an epidemic of mortgage fraud — ‘epidemic’ was their word — and predicted that it would cause a financial crisis — ‘crisis’ was their word — unless it was stopped." "And what people don’t understand about the criminal justice system is there are roughly a million people employed in it — and of course, millions incarcerated in it. But of the million employees, 2,300 do elite white-collar investigations. And of those 2,300, you have to contrast that to the number of industries in the United States, which is over 1,300." http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/17/hundreds-of-wall-street-execs-went-to-prison-during-the-last-fraud-fueled-bank-crisis/ http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/17/hundreds-of-wall-street-exe...

adrenalinelol 10y ago

You're missing a few banks from that list, ALL large investment banks had their hands in the cookie jar for CDO/CDS fraud. (Goldman, MS, etc...)