American Banks ‘High’ On Drug Money_Part 1
[Note from Elias Alias: This article is thorough, and I've found that almost all thorough articles these days require too many words, are too long, and tend to discourage some readers because of the length necessary to give the complete picture. Considering that, I've decided to post this article in two parts, as well as provide the link where readers can see it at the original site. The reason I want to post this article in full is to insure that the article remains available. This is one very important story, and the mainstream media/press has no interest in sharing this information with the average American voter. But no matter how much the media and press hate to admit this, here is the ugly truth, or part of it, behind the so-called "war on drugs". One last thing please - when reading this article, please keep in mind my article entitled Oath Keeping At The ATF, and muse upon the question of how government gun-running to the Mexican drug cartels may now be seen in tandem with corrupt banking and lax Federal transparency. See footnote #1 below article for link.]
American Banks ‘High’ On Drug Money: How a Whistleblower Blew the Lid Off Wachovia-Drug Cartel Money Laundering Scheme
A fraud investigator helped expose the shocking world of multi-billion dollar drug laundering by American banks and the surprising lack of oversight by the Feds.
June 10, 2011 |
Wachovia
Read original here: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/151135/?page=entire
Martin Woods, an Englishman in his mid-40s, is blessed with a Sherlock Holmes instinct and demeanor. Woods is an expert at sniffing out “dirty” money passing through International Banking Systems.
A police officer for 18 years and later a detective with London Metro Police Agency, Woods capitalized on his unique expertise as a fraud expert by joining Wachovia’s London-based Bank in March 2005 as an anti-money laundering officer.
It wasn’t long after taking the job that he discovered that his own employer, one of America’s leading banks, was a major player in aiding the “bloodthirsty” Mexico drug cartels to launder billions of dollars in drug money through Wachovia banks. Woods traced and identified a “number of suspicious transactions” related to Mexico-based Casa de Cambios (CDC).
Casa de Cambios are currency-exchange operations set up along the U.S. Mexico-border to assist cross border transfers of money to remit labor paychecks. And on the illegal side the Casa de Cambios are also known as the superhighway for narcotic proceeds into the U.S. and overseas financial markets.
When Woods zeroed in on deposited traveler’s checks with sequential numbers sent by the CDC he discovered that large amounts of funds were exceedingly more than a typical person would need. The questionable CDC checks either lacked adequate identifying information or had none at all, including no legible signatures affixed on the funds.
Following this discovery investigator Woods issued a “suspicious activity report” (SAR) on a series of the CDCs’ financial transfers and deposits. Then he requested the CDC checks to be temporarily blocked from transaction pending further investigation.
Not long after, an exchange of heated words occurred. A senior Miami-based manager called Woods’ SAR reports “defensive and unwarranted.”
Feeling jaded, Woods, as he recalls, “came under fire from the bank staff to change tactics and develop a better understanding of Mexico.”
Wachovia officials ordered Woods to cease inquiries about Mexican CDCs and to also stop blocking other Eastern Europe and Moscow accounts. The British investigator, snapped, “I don’t need to read up on Mexico. My interest are drug trafficking and money laundering.”
His instincts proved correct. On April 10, 2006, during early morning hours, a DC-9 airplane landed onto the tarmac at the International Airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, located east of Mexico City. Once the engine turned off, military soldiers trained by U.S. FBI agents immediately grew suspicious and surrounded the aircraft. Armed with high-powered weapons, the soldiers searched the luxury plane and discovered five-plus tons of pure cocaine packed in suitcases.
The cocaine was valued at $120 million, and the Feds working with Mexico later determined the drugs were headed for the United States from Venezuela. A stash of paperwork found on the plane eventually identified discreet connections between an American bank and Mexico-based currency operation Casa de Cambios Puebla. A subsequent investigation would prove that Wachovia Bank washed billions of illegal drug money into the U.S. financial system on behalf of the Mexico-based Casa Cambios.
With U.S. Federal law enforcement backing him up, Martin Woods’ investigation assisted the Feds to build an airtight case against Wachovia. Starting off, the Feds discovered that $13 billion dollars in drug money was transferred by the CDC into correspondent bank accounts at Wachovia to purchase airplanes for the use of trafficking drugs from Colombia to Mexico and then the drugs were shipped to the U.S.
This high-profile investigation ultimately revealed that from 2004-2007, a staggering amount of illegal drug proceeds totaling $378.4 billion dollars were transferred into Wachovia by the Mexico-based Casa Cambios that violated U.S. government anti-money laundering compliance.
Following these findings a slew of federal charges filed in 2009 by Federal prosecutors in Florida hit Wachovia with the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act in U.S. history.
Douglas Edwards, senior vice president of Wachovia Bank confessed they didn’t do enough to spot illicit funds in handling the $378.4 billions for the Mexico’s Casa Cambios. But Edwards declined to answer specific questions including how much they earned for handling the billions of dollars for the currency operation.
Overall, the amount of drug proceeds ($378 billion dollars) that the CDC deposited into Wachovia Bank actually equaled one third of Mexico’s entire $1.4 trillion dollar annual GDP.
As part of the agreement Wachovia agreed to pay the government a fine of $110 million dollars with an additional fine of $50 million dollars to be paid to the U.S. Treasury Department. The total fine of $160 million dollars was less than 2% of the bank’s $12.3 billion dollars in profit made in 2009. By the time Wachovia agreed to pay the hefty fine, Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia during the banking crisis for $12.7 billion. Then Well Fargo reaped a windfall from the government, a gift of $25 billion dollars of taxpayers money as part of President Obama stimulus package in 2009.
“Today, we announce the deferred prosecution of Wachovia, one of the largest banks in the United States, said U.S. Jeffrey Sloman on March 12, 2010. “Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations by laundering drug proceeds.”
Sloman further stated, “as this case demonstrates, financial institutions—no matter how large will be held accountable when they allow ‘dirty’ money to pollute the U.S. banking system.”
The Wachovia scandal sent fears into the banking industry among prominent members because now they suspected the Feds would crack down more heavily against foreign customers, particularly Mexico.
In an interview with a Daily Business Review reporter, International Banking Attroney Clemente Vazquez-Bello, said, “The concern, obviously, in the industry is are we going to pay for the sins of Wachovia. … It’s mind-boggling beyond comprehension that in the compliance world that an institution of their size and stature would have permitted these enormous deficiencies.”
Mexico Drug Cartel
Mexican drug lords are among the world’s most dangerous and wanted criminals. They are savage, rich, notorious for violence, and transport massive shipments of narcotics into the United States and throughout the world. They profit billions from the prohibitionist drug policies of the U.S. government.
When Mexico president Felipe Calderon took office in December, 2006, he immediately ordered the armed forces to kill or capture the cartels including their members and associates. So far, the unrelenting violence has killed more than 35,000 people, with 15,000 last year. Overall, the stark reality in this ongoing brutal and sadistic violence has failed to stem the drug war.
The tremendous amount of proceeds that the CDC transferred in-and-out of Wachovia bank raise a provocative question: How do Mexican cartels get their money into American banks? Either banking officials were asleep at the wheel or tacitly ignored the shady business going on to boost profits for themselves.
“The failure of U.S. banks to take adequate steps to prevent money laundering is a widespread and ongoing problem,” said Michigan U.S. Senator Carl Levin in February 2010.
Investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker wrote stories about the Wachovia drug cartel scandal on his website. Hopsicker’s investigation uncovered the fact that the airplanes that were busted with cocaine and purchased through Wachovia with illegal drug funds, previously had a steamy relationship with CIA and National Defense contractors.
Disappointed that the case against Wachovia didn’t go to a criminal trial, investigator Woods lamented, “Bankers will continue to take dangerous risks because the deferred prosecution concludes there’s no personal consequences for their actions.”
“We were hoping the case against Wachovia went to trial because the laundering of drug money was related to organized crime, drug trafficking and thousands of murders in Mexico,” he said.
Antoino Maria Costa, former executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in 2008, “there’s evidence to suggest that proceeds from drugs and crimes were the only liquid investment capital for banks in trouble of collapsing [during the financial crisis].”
If billions of dollars in drug money rescued banks and other financial institutions from closing down then it’s reasonable to argue that the economy itself is addicted to drugs.
As professor Dale Scott noted in his book, American War Machine: Deep Politics; the CIA Global Drug Connection: “A U.S. Senate staff chaired by the banking committee reportedly estimated that between $500 billion and $1 trillion dollars are laundered each year through banks worldwide, with approximately half of that amount funneled through U.S. Banks.”
The UK Independent newspaper reported in 2004 that drug trafficking constituted “the third-biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade.”
“New York and London are the world’s biggest financial institutions for money laundering and offshore tax havens,” Woods told this journalist during recent interview. “New York is the global currency for legitimate and criminal business because it is offshore to everywhere. And London is the world’s biggest financial center by value and volume.”
*
Clarence Walker is a veteran Houston-based journalist who writes on criminal justice issues. He can be reached at cwalkerinvestigate@gmail.com
1 – http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/03/30/oath-keeping-at-the-atf/
* Part 2 – http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/06/18/american-banks-high-on-drug-money_part-2/
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June 18th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
My hat is off to Martin Woods, a cop worth his salt!
Excellent article, Elias. Amazing the festering sore some of our financial institutions have become.
June 18th, 2011 at 8:42 pm
According to former DEA-trained LAPD narcotics detective Michael C. Ruppert, Citibank is also dirty as sin with its money laundering. This problem is quite extensive. To give you a good peek into the world of corporate criminality, one of my favorite writers, Catherine Austin Fitts, provides the most intelligent exposure of how this corruption works on Wall Street and in Washington D.C. Here is a very special link, one to read with one’s morning coffee or one’s evening coctail, when one is not in a hurry – Catherine was a managing board member of Dillon, Read on Wall Street and was assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Bush-41. She has all the major players woven into this short report (iirc, it’s about 14 pages or so, but I also recommend highly hitting her side-bar links for the people and the businesses involved, as well as her bio)and has done so very elegantly.
http://www.dunwalke.com/
And you’re right – Martin Woods, while paying the price, was finally rewarded for his honesty by a settlement from Wachovia, after the FBI’s good guys took the bank down – well, they did not take it down, but they brought it up for Federal punishment so the Federal government could get its cut of cash too, lol. Woods sounds like a really good cop, one with courage and determination, and one who is absolutely fearless in the face of huge powers. He knew his career with the bank would end, and he did the right thing anyway. I’m glad to see he came out of it nicely.
The people need to know how the eastern establishment works, both on Wall Street and in WDC.
Salute!
Elias
June 18th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
Funny how you can go back to the beginning of this country and read the same things they had to struggle with then.
I shall read that report with relish, Elias, thank you!
June 18th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
If, like the layers of sleep-states, society itself is denoted in terms of various levels along a spectrum of differing degrees of refinement or coarseness, the problem may be seen as inherent to those levels of society which perceive their human lives and their bodies as the end-all of creation or existence or manifestation or whatever other linguistic handle they choose to put on it. They forsake any spiritual reality for it is not available to them through their senses, and anything not physically sensible through the five senses we all possess is of little or no concern. Yet the higher states of consciousness, and the levels of awareness which accompany those states indicate an open door inside each human heart through which “learning” may happen, and though often derived from physical experience, learning is not physical.
In other words, the power-damaged minds of the elite, what we used to call the “Eastern Establishment”, (the roots of which history now reveals), see no need to adhere to any code of morality, and view what you and I would call “morality” as a senseless limitation against getting ahead in this world. Worse, through the generations these types of power-damaged minds have been cultivated, they have been taught to accept that they by virtue of their esoteric knowledge and genetic claim to excellence in all things, are destined to structure the civilizations on this planet and reap the due rewards for carrying the responsibility of organizing humanity globally.
The problem is that they have published their views regarding how they plan to force their controls upon the average American, his family, community, and State. And our solution to that threat is the Internet, where knowledge and info can be zipped around the planet in minutes and find countless readers or viewers in nations everywhere at the same time, on a regular, daily basis. That is why Hillary Clinton was recently requesting more funding for State Department’s “propaganda” programs. Yes, she actually said that, more than once, while begging for more financing to fight the “Information war”. We little people can all of a sudden use truthful and candid online journalism to combat the wide-spread propaganda programs this government uses to control us. That scares Hillary and all her pals over at the CFR and elsewhere. Her pals, btw, are the movers and shakers of the Progressive movement, which is statist socialism. Here are some hints in the words of their own tradition -
“In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.” ~ Strobe Talbot, President Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State, as quoted in Time, July 20th, l992.
“This gives us a large portion of the existing civilized world in which men’s minds may be readjusted to the idea that their existing governments are in the position of trustees for the greater government of the coming age. Throughout these communities it is conceivable that the structural lines of the world community may be materialized and established with only minor struggles, local boycotts, vigorous public controversies, normal legislative obstruction, social pressure, and overt political activities.” ~ From The Open Conspiracy by H. G. Wells, published 1928 and republished in 1933.
Did that, published over 80 years ago, remind us of the Tea Party’s predicted awakening? Everything Tea Party has done so far was anticipated and published way back then. Let’s look at one more quick grouping of recorded statements by the go-to boys of the power elite. Here is the Humanist approach, which has been pushed by the power elite for well over a century -
Canadian psychiatrist and World War II General Brock Chisholm, M.D. head of the World Health Organization (WHO)stated in 1946:
“The re-interpretation and eventually eradication of the concept of right and wrong which has been the basis of child training… these are the belated objectives of practically all effective psychotherapy….
“Psychology and sociology… the sciences of living, should be… taught to all children in primary an secondary schools, while the study of such thing as trigonometry, Latin, religions and others of specialist concern should be left to universities. Only so… can we help our children carry their responsibilities as world citizens…. it has long been generally accepted that parents have perfect right to impose any points of view, any lies or fears, superstitions, prejudices, hates, or faith on their defenseless children. It is, however, only recently that it has become a matter of certain knowledge that these things cause neuroses…Surely the training of children in homes and schools should be of at least as great public concern as are their vaccination… for their own protection and that of other people…. [Individuals with] guilts, fears, inferiorites, are certain to project their hates on to others…. Any such reaction now becomes a dangerous threat to the whole world. For the very survival of the human race, world understanding, tolerance and forbearance have become absolutely essential. We must be prepared to sacrifice much…. Whatever the cost, we must learn to live in friendliness and peace… . putting aside the mistaken old ways of our elders if that is possible. If it cannot be done gently, it may have to be done roughly or even violently.”
G. B. Chisholm, “The Re-establishment of Peacetime Society,” Psychiatry (February 1946); 7, 9-10, 16, 18.
-
Enough of that.
Sorry to ramble – you triggered me by noting that there is nothing new under the sun, that the problems we face today are the same old problems our forefathers had to overcome, and that kind of talk is all it takes to set me off, lol. Anyway, you’re right – it’s once again the same ol’ same ol’. Well, we know we’re smart enough to fix that, eh?
Salute!
Elias
June 19th, 2011 at 9:19 am
Hot damn, Elias! You are on a roll! Ramble all you want, your ramblings are insightful. The more information folks gather in their heads, the more they will see the truth. The truth shall set you free. The real truth, that is. The hidden truths of the power elite. Know them for what they really are, folks. Know they dream of a world of slaves serving the Elite Masters. It is staring you in the face. Think of the future your children will be faced with if this madness isn’t stopped. Spread the word. Knowledge is power. The Elite have been hiding the knowledge, the truth, behind their closed doors for generations.
Shorty Dawkins
June 20th, 2011 at 9:56 am
Nothing changes. Money rules. It is a wonder that our freedom and our Republic have lasted these two hundred plus years. The enemies of our Constitutional Republic were at work before the ink on the “U.S.” Constitution was even dry. Our Constitutional Republic is up against the power of money.
Our leaders, with few exceptions, our bought before they are elected. It is truly amazing how cheap people can be bought — You don’t need many zeros. The individual’s love of money and what it will buy him is the key to gaining and keeping power and influence.
Given enough money you can rule armies, since you can buy the leaders who rule the armies. Our founding fathers gave the “U.S.” Congress the power to make war, and not the President, since they understood the benefit of entrusting this power to many men. It is easier to buy and control one man than a group of men. But our great leaders, Presidents Bush and Obama, and those who influence them got around this safeguard by ignoring the “U.S. Constitution when they took us to war.
June 20th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
While it is true that some, perhaps even many men can be bought, there are those who have altered the course of events across the world because they could not be bought. They stood, suffered, endured and persisted to stand for what is right. It can be done and as long as I have breath to breathe, I will seek to add my life, my fortunes and my sacred honor to the ranks of those who stood up and did something to make a difference. Those “moneychangers” without moral compass or loyalty have a great weakness in their greed and arrogance. They always fail to see that we’re not as gullible and stupid as they think we are, nor do they understand our commitment to the truth and to the principles of liberty. There are many Americans that are going to be caught with their proverbial pants down when things get further along, but… that is when “We the People” who made this country, truly shine.