11/12/2012

HSBC Charged $1.9bn In Money Laundering Penalties

UK based bank HSBC has agreed to pay the largest recorded settlement to US authorities over money laundering.

They have been ordered to hand over $1.9bn (£1.2bn) after a US Senate investigation revealed the bank had been a conduit for "drug kingpins and rogue nations".

A report by the US Senate, published earlier this year, alleged that HSBC in the US had not treated its Mexican affiliate as high risk, well known money laundering and drug trafficking risks.

The Mexican bank transported $7bn in US bank notes to HSBC in the US without considering that to be suspicious.

It had circumvented US safeguards designed to block transactions involving terrorists drug lords and rogue states, including allowing 25,000 transactions over seven years without disclosing their links to Iran.

They had provided US dollars and banking services to some banks in Saudi Arabia despite their links to terrorist financing.

In less than four years it had cleared $290m in US travellers' cheques for a Japanese bank, benefiting Russians who claimed to be in the used car business.

HSBC group chief executive Stuart Gulliver said in a statement: "We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again."

The bank will spend $290m on improving money laundering preventions. It has appointed a former US official to work as head of financial crime compliance.

(GK)

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