How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs by Ed Vulliamy (4-3-11

[bobthedrummer]

Guardian/Observer)

"As the violence spread, billions of dollars of cartel cash began to seep into the global financial system. But a special investigation by the Observer reveals how the increasingly frantic warnings of one London whistle blower were ignored."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs

Daniel Hopsicker covered this and many related stories at his Madcow Morning News site
http://madcowprod.com

The money laundering thread: A DU collaborative investigation (started 7-9-10)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8716178

Who else here at DU follows the money that circulates in the black budget?

Who else here at DU is attempting to do something about it?

[midnight]

1. Thank you for keeping us informed about this drug money...

I went through a couple of the links you posted and found:

Cooking the Insurance Books A Decade of Lax Regulation Lays Groundwork for Scandal by Lucy Komisar, Special to CorpWatch
November 17th, 2004

In October, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed suit against the world’s largest insurance broker, Marsh, accusing it of rigging bids and receiving kickbacks in order to defraud clients such as other corporations, city governments, school districts and individuals of billions of dollars through inflated premiums.

“Greedy trial lawyers were the usual excuse for premium increases. Now we know that greedy corporations also have a starring role," Spitzer said, accusing several insurance companies as co-conspirators in making phony or inflated bids and paying kickbacks to the brokerage to get business.

Spitzer also announced that two executives from the insurance conglomerate American International Group (AIG) had already confessed to related criminal charges. But his investigations into AIG may have only scratched the surface. A paper trail stretching back a decade reveals that AIG used offshore shell companies to skirt the law.

The current scam which Spitzer has uncovered works like this: Marsh, an insurance broker, is supposed to find the best insurance policies for its clients from a wide range of companies. Instead it steered the policies to companies such as AIG that agreed to pay kickbacks. It solicited phony competitive bids for insurance contracts to deceive customers into thinking there was real competition
their business. Marsh made $800 million on kickbacks in 2003 alone – over half its $1.5 billion profit. With a 40-percent share of the global insurance brokerage market, its fraud drove up prices for everyone.http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11657aig

Instead of hearing about this, we received non stop news about Martha Stewart....http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19498-2004Feb6.html

[crickets]

2. K&R -nt

[bobthedrummer]

3. ^ Response/comments are always welcomed n/t

[bobthedrummer]

4. ^

[SOS]

5. In retrospect

The now defunct Wachovia and Wamu appear to have been organized crime syndicates rather than legitimate financial institutions.

[newspeak]

9. remember BCCI in the eighties?

when we are talking about financial institutions abetting criminality--how about drug money laundering to aid terrorism? I wonder how many so called upright businesses and officials have made good bank on the very thing they say they are protecting the public from. After all, Iran-Contra deal, drugs were put on our street-guns for coke. What a trade. Drugs on our streets to pump up the prison industry and scare more americans into being afraid-just like the so called war on terrorism.

[bobthedrummer]

6. ^

[Ignis]

7. K&R

Black budgets have no place in a democratic society.

[bobthedrummer]

8. ^