The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Economics => Topic started by: DixieBelle on April 28, 2008, 10:16:06 AM
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WASHINGTON (AFP) — US justice authorities are investigating Wachovia Corp, one of the top five US banks, as part of a probe into Latin American drug money laundering, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
Wachovia is one a several large US banks being examined for relations with Mexican and Colombian money-transfer and foreign exchange firms directly involved in the laundering, the Journal said.
The Journal also said the bank is possibly facing a deferred-prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice that would subject it to "extensive federal oversight."
But Wachovia denied that assertion.
"The statement in the article that Wachovia is discussing a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department is not true," spokeswoman Christy Phillips-Brown told AFP.
"Wachovia is not currently and has not in the past been engaged in any such discussions," she said.
Phillips-Brown refused to confirm or deny any investigation, saying the bank "does not comment on the status or existence of government investigations and did not comment for the Journal article as implied in the story."
But "Wachovia is committed to maintaining a strong anti-money laundering program," she added.
The Department of Justice is investigating drug-money laundering through the hundreds of money-transfer businesses -- known in Spanish as casas de cambio -- around the country that mostly handle remittances to Latin American countries by workers inside the United States.
The remittance business processes about 50 billion dollars a year, the Journal said.
"Internal emails and documents filed in federal courts in Miami, Chicago and New York describe former ties between Wachovia and money-changing firms," the Journal said.
It said Miami court documents show that US agents have seized over 11 million dollars in 23 Wachovia accounts that belonged to the Mexican chain Casa de Cambio Puebla. US authorities suspected the money was the laundered funds of a drugs syndicate.
The probe into Wachovia is part of a larger investigation into money laundering by drug cartels through the money transfer firms that involves both US and Mexican authorities.
The Journal said both Union Bank of California and American Express Bank International have paid authorities multi-million-dollar penalties as part of laundering investigations and charges that they fail to implement effective anti-money-laundering programs.
Phillips-Brown said that late last year Wachovia decided to exit its business with the casas de cambio, which she termed "a corporate decision."
The news about Wachovia came one day after it agreed to pay 144 million dollars in fines and claims after an investigation into telemarketing fraud that involved the use of Wachovia accounts.
The Justice Department was not immediately available for comment
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hGguZx99uU8X7mGtVM4NwvcfVMKg
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When an illegal alien walks into your bank, and you give him a bank loan based on "alternate income and personal verification" what is the difference between that and money laundering?
None
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The big bank I work for has a huge money laundering compliance area. I used to work in that department. Various government agencies come in and monitor the big bank on a rotating basis about once every five months.
We always got a very squeeky clean audit. Our competitors always were paying fines. The fines are pretty substantial. When I worked that department, whenever one of our competitors got hit with a fine, we heard about it. One competitor had to pay over $2,000,000 on one occasion. We were very careful
Even now, the whole of the big bank goes through compliance training on this issue at time of hire and once every six months. It is a big issue.
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When an illegal alien walks into your bank, and you give him a bank loan based on "alternate income and personal verification" what is the difference between that and money laundering?
None
i should have known something was up a long time ago. one of my many mothers in law used to underwrite mortgages for Bank of America in Texas in the late 90s. she would tell us stories of having to take work home so often, cause she couldnt keep up. she was giving loans to foreigners who had just come to this country - people who didnt speak the language and who had no real financial track record. she was pressured quite a lot to get these loans finished and recorded - i mean *heavily* pressured. i wonder why...
i just remembered that for some reason..