Somewhat related.....
Wachovia Bank caught financing and laundering money for Mexican drug cartels..
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-0...-u-s-deal.html
"The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.:
Wachovia Corp. and
Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue.
This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers.
Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers -- including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.
The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years."
"Wachovia admitted it didn’t do enough to spot illicit funds in handling
$378.4 billion for Mexican-currency-exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. That’s the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history -- a sum equal to one-third of Mexico’s current
gross domestic product.
“Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations,” says
Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the case."