FinCEN files

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An illustrated demonstration of how US banks in laundering money for international criminal organizations.

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The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists explains what the FinCEN files are, and why you should care.

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is HSBC your bank? Maybe consider doing business elsewhere.

"HSBC continued to provide banking services to alleged criminals, Ponzi schemers, shell companies tied to looted government funds and financial go-betweens for drug traffickers. This occurred even while the bank was on probation and under Cherkasky’s scrutiny.

records show that between 2013 and 2017, HSBC’s U.S. compliance staff, who are charged with monitoring customer activity, filed reports lacking crucial customer information on 16 shell companies that had processed nearly $1.5 billion in more than 6,800 transactions through the bank’s Hong Kong operations alone. More than $900 million of that total involved shell companies linked to alleged criminal networks

HSBC processed at least $31 million between 2014 and 2015 for companies later revealed to have moved stolen government funds from Brazil; and more than $292 million between 2010 and 2016 for a Panama-based organization branded by U.S. authorities as a major money launderer for drug cartels.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/fin ... ring-fine/

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The ICIJ provided some examples of the costs to individuals: harm suffered at the expense of criminals who are able to thrive with the assistance of money laundering banks.

This system has had lasting consequences that ravage the lives of people like those you may know.

Emily knew that her brother used drugs; he was arrested in 10th grade for bringing marijuana to school and, more recently, had pawned his father’s work tools to buy cocaine.

In 2017, U.S. prosecutors named Williams — referred to only by his initials, “J.W.” — as the first American victim of a global plot to distribute deadly drugs.

More than 31,000 Americans died from synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, in 2018. Fentanyl and other laboratory-made drugs, some 10,000 times more potent than morphine, now kill more Americans than any other opioid. The U.S. Treasury Department says that financial crime makes it all possible."

"The dozens of political figures who feature in the documents include Paul Manafort, the former Donald Trump campaign manager who was convicted of fraud and tax evasion. JPMorgan reported that it moved money between Manafort and his associates’ shell companies as recently as September 2017, long after his ties to Russian-connected Ukrainian officials and suspected money laundering had been widely reported.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/fin ... and-lives/

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"five global banks — JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon — kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players even after U.S. authorities fined these financial institutions for earlier failures to stem flows of dirty money.

the banks kept moving illicit funds even after U.S. officials warned them they’d face criminal prosecutions if they didn’t stop doing business with mobsters, fraudsters or corrupt regimes.

Big banks continue to play a central role in moving money tied to corruption, fraud, organized crime and terrorism.

documents identify more than $2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017 that were flagged by financial institutions’ internal compliance officers as possible money laundering or other criminal activity — including $514 billion at JPMorgan and $1.3 trillion at Deutsche Bank.

JPMorgan also processed more than $50 million in payments over a decade, the records show, for Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for President Donald Trump. The bank shuttled at least $6.9 million in Manafort transactions in the 14 months after he resigned from the campaign amid a swirl of money laundering and corruption allegations spawning from his work with a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/fin ... errorists/

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"Ramirez keeps her stove’s back burner lit for hours when she does her household chores.

I leave it on because matches are very expensive,” Ramirez said. “We can’t go buying them all the time.”

Venezuela is suffering one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises. Inflation is out of control and the country’s oil industry, which once fueled the economy, is in shambles. One in three Venezuelans is not getting enough to eat, and about 5 million Venezuelans, more than one in six, have fled the country.

All the things that Venezuelans don’t have are from the money that went abroad.

boligarchs moved vast sums of dollars in public money out of Venezuela, including money intended for housing and other basic services, even as the country’s economy was collapsing.

Alejandro Ceballos Jiménez, a construction mogul with cozy government connections, secretly routed at least $116 million from public housing contracts to recipients including offshore companies and bank accounts belonging to family members, the documents show. The contracts were for the construction of Ramirez’s housing complex, part of a grand plan to construct millions of affordable homes for ordinary Venezuelans.

He was investigated by Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly for alleged participation in several schemes to steal public resources. In one instance, he was suspected of helping to divert $500 million from a state-owned aluminum and gold producer; in another, he allegedly collaborated in the improper sale of public lands in a tourism zone called “Acapulco Venezuela.”

The documents also reveal the pivotal role played by banks in Europe and the United States in facilitating the flow of money from Venezuela, despite blatant red flags signalling financial improprieties.

In 2012, Espirito Santo set up a business checking account for Sarleaf, the offshore company secretly controlled by the Ceballos family.

The bank processed more than $262 million in payments linked to Sarleaf, as well as transactions associated with tycoons Isabel dos Santos of Angola and Dmytro Firtash of Ukraine, FinCEN Files documents show. Dos Santos and Firtash face criminal charges of corruption in Angola and the U.S., respectively."

https://www.icij.org/investigations/fin ... -billions/