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Widening Russia Money Laundering Scandal Hits European Banks
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ttul 8y agoImagine if the mafia ran an entire country.
- cpursley 8y agoA state is not all that different than a mafia (monopoly power). Try not paying your dues.
- thefounder 8y agoLast time I've checked IRS didn't come with a crow bar after my taxes and I still have all my fingers. Even an authoritarian government may behave better than mafia.
- imgabe 8y agoWell, assuming you paid your taxes. If you don't, they will throw you in jail. If you resist being thrown in jail, they'll use whatever force is necessary. Sure, they're not going to break your fingers with a crowbar, but ultimately the state backs up its authority with the use of force.
- merpnderp 8y agoOnly after following policies and procedures that apply to everyone equally, are open to the public, and are overseen by elected officials. I mean other than that, sure they both use force to achieve their goals.
- imgabe 8y agoI'm pretty sure the mob's policy on breaking people's fingers if they don't pay applies equally to everyone who owes them money, and anyone who chooses to borrow money from them is well aware of this policy.
- thefounder 8y agoYou don't know what you are talking about. You may get "whacked" for different reasons by the mafia, not owning them any money or having anything to do with them. It's not really a profit only oriented business. Money is just part of the game. Some people do things just because they can, not for financial gain.
- imgabe 8y agoOk? I don't see how that changes anything. You may get "whacked" by the government for other reasons too, like they mistakenly thought your house was a meth lab and you didn't put your hands up fast enough. The fact that other reasons exist doesn't mean that this one doesn't.
- merpnderp 8y agoWhy would you ignore the most important of the differences I mentioned - that of being overseen by elected officials? In the end, the government uses force to do everything, and this is okay because we get to vote on who controls that force, plus have a nifty legal framework and Constitution to limit the damage the elected idiots can do.
- imgabe 8y agoThere are differences. Nobody said there weren't. The parent comment was making an analogy, not positing that the government and the mafia are the literal exact same thing in every detail.
- dfrage 8y ago> Well, assuming you paid your taxes. If you don't, they will throw you in jail. In the US? You'd have to do more than not "pay your taxes", they'll first demand that you pay, and then seize assets and garnish your wages rather than take the very anti-American debtor prison approach.
- braythwayt 8y agoThis is a false equivalence. To paraphrase Erik Naggum, you are emphasizing the things that states and criminal enterprises have in common that are not important, while ignoring the ways in which they differ that are important. It's true that a state has a certain monopoly on governance. But it is not true that states and the mafia are not all that different.
- Sharlin 8y agoIt’s literally called ”the worst argument in the world”! https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncentral-fallacy-the-worst-argument-in-the-world https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...
- braythwayt 8y agoPlease accept all of my upvotes, this is the first time I am learning about “The Noncentral Fallacy.” Thank you.
- marvin 8y agoI suppose that’s why it’s called «the tyranny of the majority», but at least in democracies, the state does represent the majority of the voters. In principle, the state could be slimmed down dramatically. A majority libertarian state (or a majority that allowed opting out of the tax system) would be a very fascinating experiment to watch from a distance. (Might be too exciting to watch from up close).
- sideb0ard 8y agoBrian Michael Bendis already did - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicBook/TheUnitedStatesOfMurderInc https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicBook/TheUnitedSt...
- ohaideredevs 8y agoThere is genuinely little reason to believe that modern-day Russia isn't run by the mafia and the KGB, as long as you define "run by" as "government mainly compromised of current/prior members."
- Sharlin 8y agoI mean, you probably meant ”comprised”, but ”compromised” is quite apt in this case as well.
- ohaideredevs 8y agoRight, thanks for the correction and right on the latter as well.
- gdy 8y agoI challenge you to name one mafia member in the Russian government.
- scottlocklin 8y agoIf you look into Bill Browder's background, connections with Safra ... Republic Bank, people like Comey and Mueller ... you may find out a mafia runs more than an entire country ... and I'm not talking about Russia.
- cycrutchfield 8y agoOh wow, you really blew the case wide open. Where did you get such amazing intel, Alex Jones?
- scottlocklin 8y agoGo have a look. It's bizarre. Safra/Republic Bank was deeply involved in the looting of Russia in the 90s; literally 747s full of physical dollars back and forth between JFK and Moscow. They also funded Browder who the Russians accuse of more of the same, more or less. One of Comey's few day jobs was sitting on the board for Republic's successor company ... and Mueller let them off for the huge money laundering scams they did as Republic (they have a long history working together; I'm sure it at least helped he was on the board). Browder himself is super shady, as even a cursory look into his background would tell you. However, the media, even congress seem to treat him as if he were physiologically incapable of telling a lie. There's 5-6 hours of the FBI interviewing him on such matters on youtube; since he's under oath he remarkably doesn't remember much. I guess that means he's technically not lying! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu9DMxfTGhY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu9DMxfTGhY
- auntienomen 8y agoYou know, Locklin, it's pretty weird to see you playing coy instead of spelling it out explicitly in flaming letters 100 feet high. Maybe what you're vaguely implying isn't actually true?
- scottlocklin 8y agoWhich piece do you find vague?
- mmphosis 8y agohttps://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
- mihaifm 8y agoWhat's funny is that all these banks have mandatory anti-money laundering training courses that are enforced down the hierarchy to developers, IT staff and even call center operators, while most of the fraud is done at the top tier with the consent of high ranking managers.
- gcb0 8y agoand that's why we should always celebrate and defend whistle-blowers.
- Krasnol 8y agoI always felt like those were done for two reasons: 1) tell your clients/press that you have them 2) if you get caught tell you "we've told you not to do it. we're at no fault here" From my personal experience they are not being taken serious if the client is important. Or are being taken serious in a way that you have people who help you out with that kind of shady business stuff.
- mannykannot 8y agoThe second part of item 2 is that you then set up the incentives in such a way that some of your minions will choose to break the law (and hide it from you) without being explicitly instructed to do so.
- tristor 8y agoPlausible deniability is the first step to creating a criminal empire where you don't get caught. Anyone who has ever seen The Wire already knows where this ends up.
- ozzi94 8y agoWhen I was at Intel a decade ago all the techies had to go through mandatory ethics training because the Sales guys had been arrested busy bribing people in the third world. So not just banks.
- darkpuma 8y ago
- chollida1 8y agoI'm following this story more to see how countries answer the question of... How do you punish a big firm that your country deeply depends on? Canada is going through this now with a major construction company SNC Lavlin, that seems to be guilty of using bribes in Lybia. The Canadian government seems to have interfered with their court case for what could be seen as "good intentions". If proven guilty SNC could n o longer bid on Canadian government contracts and this would hurt alot of large infrastructure projects in Canada, as well as the 8000+ jobs in Canada that had nothing to do with the bribes. Germany is doing something some what with Deutsche Bank, a bank plagued by scandal and fines but one that is a critical part of the German financial infrastructure. So how do you punish these banks and not hurt the 10,000+ workers who had no part in this while or harming your economy? Seems like one answer is to go after the C-Suite executives.
- duxup 8y agoFine the bank enough that stock holders give a damn. And as you say actually punish executives with jail time.
- thefounder 8y agoOne thing they could do is to put all the people who knowingly facilitated the crime in jail(i.e top executives). I'm pretty sure that would be a better detterent than some huge fines.
- onemoresoop 8y agoI absolutely second this. But I don't think it will happen
- marvin 8y agoYou could also make the shareholders accountable. Seize a percentage of their ownership, for instance. That way, the company itself doesn’t suffer. Would be painful the first few times, because it would also hit pension funds and minority investors, but investors should quickly adapt. This is also how bailouts should work to ensure that owners/leadership doesn’t gamble on a bailout.
- samsonradu 8y agoFor anyone interested in how (dirty) big money moves around the world in our current financial and legal framework, the “Billion Dollar Whale” book provides a very interesting insight. A fascinating read of fraud at the highest level. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38743564-billion-dollar-whale https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38743564-billion-dollar-...
- imnotlost 8y agoIn reality, a liberal bribing policy to get business done, to protect profits and increase margins, along with a solid policy to push wages down and reduce the workforce is what's best for every country... at least for the ones who pull the strings in said country.
- onetimemanytime 8y agoquestion: say Russians want to launder $10B. Banks help them. What is the % today to launder money? And how much would banks keep? I am surprised execs would risk jail, fines, lifetime job loss unless they would profit handsomely. Maybe they can get paid on the side for such deals? I get the bonus payments from the bank but still...
- JOnAgain 8y agoI'm not under the impression the execs are risking jail, fines or lifetime job loss. The latter seems possible, but I haven't heard of many execs going to jail or suffering personal fines.
- binarymax 8y agoBut they don't risk any of those things. Aside from Iceland can you mention a bank where their execs did jail time in the past 10 years for the shenanigans that have come to light? HSBC was caught red handed laundering money for drug cartels and I think maybe there were some fines? None of them went to jail.
- onetimemanytime 8y agostill, how much will the bank get on fees and what % does trickle to C-level execs? I mean still the reward can't be that great (relative to their existing wealth /salaries
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- driverdan 8y agoMany times they're not active participants. They don't investigate sources but aren't outright told it's money laundering.
- Tsubasachan 8y agoIt always baffles me how the people who can't stop critiquing Western European civilisation end up hiding their money here. Must be doing something right. Patriotism isn't about waving the flag, beating up foreigners and singing the national anthem- its about paying your taxes. Which amusingly none of the Russian elite seems particularly interested in.
- rchaud 8y ago> It always baffles me how the people who can't stop critiquing Western European civilisation end up hiding their money here. It's about as baffling as when governments that constantly criticize others for violating human rights have no problem selling weapons to those exact same parties, and letting their oligarchs/royal family/well-connected goons buy up expensive properties inside of their own borders.
- AzzieElbab 8y agoThis is the way modern Russia works. Troika is probably one of a cleaner financial institutions there, but they have to service the ruling class just like everybody else
- kileywm 8y agoI was just wondering if a whistleblower program that rewards credible whisteblowing with a portion of the fine exists and it does! https://www.whistleblowersinternational.com/what-is-whistleblowing/rewards/ https://www.whistleblowersinternational.com/what-is-whistleb... There aren't many famously-rewarded whistleblowers, and of them, banking seems to be a rarity (except for Deutsche Bank), but it's certainly an interesting concept. Effective? Time will tell.