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It is complicated, for many reasons. A very important one is that responsibility is very diluted. - A bank executive opens an account to a seemingly legit comp
by josu 4y ago
It is complicated, for many reasons. A very important one is that responsibility is very diluted.
- A bank executive opens an account to a seemingly legit company.
- The compliance department OKs the account opening.
- A bank teller receives 50k USD in cash every month.
- Another teller receives another 50k USD in cash every month.
- The head of the branch doesn't report strange activity.
- The AML system by the bank don't detect anything strange.
...
Every one of those steps, and many more, are needed for this kind of operation. Who do you send to prison? Do you make the CEO responsible even though she probably had no idea that this was going on? Or do you send the bank teller to prison, who was just doing her job, and maybe even threatened by the cartels?
Even if the branch manager was getting paid by the cartels in order to not file AML reports, the payments were definitely happening in cash, so the conviction would have to be made based on eye-witnesses rather than an actual paper trail (good luck with that).
Another important thing is that if you look at the report, they blame HSBC for failing to properly monitor the transactions, framing the institution more as a victim than an accomplice of the cartels. So in reality, it's the cartels doing the money laundering, the bank is just a gear in the whole system.
- noobermin 4y agoThen by that logic, the drug runner should not be jailed either, as they too are a victim rather than an accomplice. May be they too are being threatened by the cartel to cooperate, and so on. Taken far enough, you really can't penalize anyone and things like sanctions don't work and have no teeth.
- d4mi3n 4y agoI think awareness, agency, and intent are also factors here. In your and the OPs examples: - CEO should have a large amount of agency and awareness of the situation, meaning they should be on the hook for severe negligence at the least. If intent can be proven, that should definitely result in criminal charges. - A bank teller might have awareness if they personally handle suspiciously large transactions per month, but the amount of agency they have in the situation is low. They can either report it up their chain of command, do nothing, or work elsewhere. You might be able to demonstrate intent here if it’s the same teller and they don’t raise any alarms, but that’s also assuming nobody has valid reasons for regular 50k deposits and that the teller doesn’t fear for their job or wellbeing. - Drug runner is a tricky one—how much agency do they have? Are they under duress? They likely intend to run drugs unless they’re in the know about their cargo. As other commenters posted, there’s also no official way to dilute responsibility here as the organization running drugs isn’t beholden to our legal system, so our theoretical drug runner is the only person available to punish. It’s an interesting thought experiment. I’d like to hear thoughts on how folks think stuff like this should be prosecuted — what outcomes do we want to promote and what actions would promote those outcomes?
- olalonde 4y ago"Money laundering" and "drug smuggling" are two completely different things that can't be reasonably compared. A better analogy here would be shipping companies or taxi drivers being caught unknowingly transporting drugs. I'm pretty sure the USPS does that every day and I don't think any of their execs go to prison over that. Same for bus, taxi or airline companies. In the online world, the DMCA explicitly ensures that web hosts and platform operators are not on the hook for unknowingly hosting illegal content.
- hnfong 4y ago> Taken far enough, you really can't penalize anyone and things like sanctions don't work and have no teeth. You're getting somewhere, actually. Crimes generally don't happen in a vacuum. In most crimes, the society around the perpetrator is complicit. Most people aren't born compelled to become delinquents. They're often driven by unfortunate circumstances and ignorance, situations that society shares part of the blame too. The criminal law just chooses the most unfortunate person as the "protagonist" to punish. There are certainly "evil" people, but they're far less than the criminal law seeks to convict.
- snozolli 4y agoDo you make the CEO responsible even though she probably had no idea that this was going on? You send the CEO to prison because they're responsible for what happens under them. CEOs always say they get paid so much because they're the ones bearing ultimate responsibility, so off to jail you go.
- delusional 4y agoThe first person who went to prison for the VW emissions scandal was the engineer.
- abduhl 4y agoAs it should be. The hands that physically commit the crime (or the code) are usually the dirtiest.
- snozolli 4y agoAh, yes, giving management that sweet plausible deniability. Just create an impossible demand on your workers and then act surprised when they employ unethical practices to meet those demands. Just like Wells Fargo. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_cross-selling_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_cross-selling_sc...
- abduhl 4y agoThat isn’t what I said. I said that the person who commits the crime should be the first one to go to jail. That implies others should follow.
- justinclift 4y agoOften times, the crime that's committed is because the boss told them to do it, then threatened the engineer when they initially said No.