Reply #47: I keep telling people how to take those banks down...but nobody listens. [View All]

[Chan790]

They're looking for proof of mortgage fraud and other white-collar financial crimes; they should be looking for OFAC violations. That's the juicy, destroy-the-bank stuff; that's what gives bank executives nightmares; there is no too big to be charged with these kinds of crimes (everything from obs. of justice to RICO to money laundering and terrorism) when they involve national security. I'm ahead of myself here.

There is a US intelligence agency organized under the US Dept. of the Treasury called OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) whose purpose for existence is to ID, disrupt and seize the assets of terrorists, drug cartels, rogue states, weapons traffickers and foreign agents of espionage.

What does this have to do with banks? Banks (and any business engaged in international trade for that matter) are required to act to insure they're not in violation of holding these accounts, doing business with restricted parties or being used to conduct or obscure financial crimes of this type; also to maintain comprehensive OFAC compliance...the penalties are very severe and related subsequent acts are actionable. (i.e you knowingly (or should have known) launder money used to finance an assassination, you can be charged with murder.) Even unintentional violations (such as those resulting from poor operational control, ineptitude or failure to maintain compliance) are treated as criminal...just ask Riggs Bank. (If being the house-bank of the CIA and having the uncle and brother of two of the most-corrupt POTUS in recent history head your Board of Directors isn't enough to get you off the hook for sheltering and laundering money for Pinochet, nobody is above reproach.)

Okay, still with me? Banks are required to maintain offices and taskforces to insure OFAC compliance and review accounts and transactions. Problem: there are too many accounts and transactions being accessed every day, too many being created or terminated, too many people walking into the bank and handing the teller or financial-services rep (the average bank doesn't even train branch staff on what to look for.) large cash or official check transactions (These generate reports and paperwork but not enough scrutiny to ID anybody trained to avoid detection). It's not possible to review them all. Problem: The people planning and committing OFAC-violation crimes are very very good at what they do...we're not talking about your average schmuck, we're talking about foreign operatives with the full-backing of hostile states, financial professionals and other highly-trained people who get paid very well to not get caught. Reality: It's an accepted annoyance of bank executives that it'd be a safe bet to assume that every major US bank has at least one and probably several serious OFAC violations in the books they'll never find. The operating wager is that if the people the bank pays to insure compliance and ferret out the violations can't find them, neither can OFAC. As an insider, I know that the bank I work for isn't trying real hard to find the very profitable accounts they're supposed to be shutting down and reporting.

What advantage does the public and indie media have? We're legion. Find the crimes, turn over the proof and publicize them so they can't be swept away...watch the monsters die.