HSBC admitted to U.S. prosecutors in 2012 that it had helped launder money, including at least $881 million controlled by the Sinaloa cartel and other Mexican

HSBC admitted to U.S. prosecutors in 2012 that it had helped launder money, including at least $881 million controlled by the Sinaloa cartel and other Mexican drug gangs. https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/legacy/2012/12/11/dpa-attachment-a.pdf https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/legacy/2012/... The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that HSBC actively circumvented rules designed to “block transactions involving terrorists, drug lords, and rogue regimes.” In one case, “two HSBC affiliates sent nearly 25,000 transactions involving $19.4 billion through their HBUS [HSBC’s U.S. affiliate] accounts over seven years without disclosing the transactions’ links to Iran.” US prosecutors said that deposits at Mexican branches were so frequent that drug traffickers used boxes that were designed to fit perfectly through the teller windows http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hearings/us-vulnerabilities-to-money-laundering-drugs-and-terrorist-financing-hsbc-case-history http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hea... This has then led to the families of victims of the Cartel directly suing HSBC for allowing the gangs to launder billions, providing ‘systematic material support to the cartels’. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/11/families-of-americans-killed-by-mexican-cartels-sue-hsbc https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/11/families-of... If HSBC were a country, it would be the fifth world economic power. At the time $1.9bn equated to just five weeks of the bank’s profits.