WASHINGTON - US prosecutors are looking into whether British bank HSBC was involved
in laundering money for Mexican drug cartels and moving cash for Saudi Arabian
banks with ties to terrorists, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Citing unnamed federal
authorities with direct knowledge of the investigations, the newspaper said the
investigators were also probing whether HSBC circumvented US law by
transferring money through its American subsidiary for sanctioned nations,
including Iran, Sudan and North Korea.
Last month, HSBC announced that
its Mexico unit had paid a fine totalling 379 million Mexican pesos (S$34.4
million) to Mexico's banking regulators for breaching anti-money laundering
controls.
Earlier, HSBC apologized and a
senior executive resigned after US lawmakers accused Europe's biggest bank of
giving Iran, terrorists and drug dealers access to America's financial system.
In a 330-page report, the US
Senate found the lender allowed affiliates in countries such as Mexico, Saudi
Arabia and Bangladesh to move billions of dollars in suspect funds into the
United States without adequate controls.
The report said HSBC's Mexican
affiliate "transported $7.0 billion in physical US dollars to HBUS from
2007 to 2008... raising red flags that the volume of dollars included proceeds
from illegal drug sales in the United States."
According to The Times, eager to
resolve the investigation, HSBC reached out to federal prosecutors in July in
hopes of securing a settlement by September.
But officials said a settlement
in the next couple of weeks was highly unlikely, the paper pointed out.
AFP
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