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Comment by hedvig | Hacker News Reader

>found to harbor ill gotten gains

Ah yeah like they were on the hook for laundering Mexican drug cartel money?

If you actually read my post, I do imply that when it is worth it, the banks will overlook things, but an individual sex worker's business is not worth the risk (probably, I'm not a banker). They'll help you launder $100 million, but not $10000.

They'll help you launder $100 million, but not $10000.

Actually, no; they won't.

That is unless you find a crooked banker (probably a number of them), which is willing to help.

While it's a nice illusion that a bank will do anything for money and this may have been the case 30 years ago this has massively changed.

The reputational risk and the risk of criminal prosecution, including loss of the banking license in critical markets, is much too big as that a reputable bank would willingly engage in such shenanigans nowadays.

That's not saying that it doesn't happen (see recent examples), but if it happens it's virtually always under circumvention of risk management and compliance departments at a bank.

That's just mincing words. Fine, so it won't be a bank that helps you launder $100 million, but an employee of the bank. Ultimately, it is a human that makes the decision, not some abstract entity. I thought it would be obvious (and won't require the addressing of every irrelevant technicality) that banks don't provide money laundering services in their catalog, but above a certain sum, you can just shop around until you find willing individuals. Happy now?

Or the human trafficking?

Umm yes they were, even if they'd done everything right. Look at the HSBC case and tell me the bank did anything nefarious or even negligent. Nope, governments hit them both ways.

HSBC admitted negligence. The cartels liked working with HSBC so much they even had secure money boxes made that were specifically designed to fit through the hole in HSBC branch teller windows.

There are tons of references online, but these are some:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-12-12/hsbc-mexi...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/17/hsbc-execut...

https://www.foxnews.com/world/hsbc-knowingly-helped-mexican-...

First link is paywalled.

Second link: they kowtowed to Congress because it would be worse if they hadn't. Look at what they actually did: they complied with the law and advised their clients on how to comply with the law. That's their job.

Third link appears to be all about allegations in a lawsuit rather than anything that was proven.

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