
ANZ, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup face 'criminal cartel' charges - lifeisstillgood
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-44326034
======
charleyma
Fully expect this to eventually get settled with no prosecution against any
execs.

When HSBC laundered money for the Mexican Cartel [1], just had to pay a one
time fine of $1.92B [2] and say "we're sorry".

Would be extremely surprised if the bank's legal teams let it get far into
prosecution.

[1] [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-
hsbc-s...](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-
settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213) [2]
[http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/10/news/companies/hsbc-money-
la...](http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/10/news/companies/hsbc-money-laundering)

~~~
yeukhon
I also recommend Netflix’s Dirty Money. It covers the HSBC scandal. I am so
disappointed in our American federal government. Totally a sold out of our
justice system. Fuck that shit. It was literally a “too big to fail, too big
to fuck with”. Disclaimer: I was okay with bail out - but I am not okay with
letting these bankers get away with their crimes involving money laundering.

~~~
rando444
This whole Justice Department going after cash instead of convictions can be
blamed largely on Eric Holder.

Matt Taibbi writes about this extensively in one of his books, I can't
remember which, but the main points are included in this article for anyone
interested.

[https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/eric-holder-
wall-...](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/eric-holder-wall-street-
double-agent-comes-in-from-the-cold-20150708)

------
mrleiter
>Australia's scandal-plagued financial sector is at the centre of a national
inquiry into misconduct.

Is there a country on this planet where the financial sector is not scandal-
plagued? It is a serious question, with a cynic undertone, still, seriously:
is there one? Can a "financial sector" work properly?

~~~
pandapunchpower
I suspect those that are not scandal plagued fall into one of three buckets.

1) The banks face wide ranging, competent and impartial oversight and they
know it. Unsure this exists but its theoretically possible.

2) The government is directly involved in bank activity so there is no one
impartial to investigate scandal-worthy behavior.

3) The government and the banks are separate but bank oversight is negligible
or ineffective. This causes scandal-worthy behavior to go unnoticed.

I suspect scandal free countries largely fall into category #2 and #3.

~~~
mrleiter
That would be somehow sobering.

There is another option: a small bank that does not trade derivates and where
people within know the customers not only by an excel sheet [1]. But then
again this is impossible to scale. It's still nice to see.

[1]
[https://translate.google.at/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://...](https://translate.google.at/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/eine-
kleine-bank-in-der-emmentaler-taiga-ld.1370910&prev=search)

~~~
noxToken
> _where people within know the customers not only by an excel sheet_

Unless you don't count individual actions, this is probably nonexistent.

My hometown had a very small regional bank with roughly 3 branches total. One
manager was caught skimming funds out of the vault. She was responsible for
the closing amount at the end of the day, but she didn't know that there was
another person who double checked behind her.

The other was someone who was skimming funds from deployed military and fixed-
income retirees. I don't recall the exact process for deployed military, but
it involved removing extra funds from their accounts when an auto-pay
transaction (wireless bill, mortgage, etc.) hit. I don't know the details like
if she somehow bumped the transaction amount or added a small transaction fee.

The fixed-income retirees was simple. When an elderly person came in to cash a
check, she would palm a bill or two and short the customer.

------
lifeisstillgood
I am trying to be surprised to find criminal activity in Finance but I cannot
work up the passion.

The UK happily lets in an estimated 90 billion a year of dirty money to be
laundered in the City of London, and all we need do to stop it is enforce
beneficial ownership registries.

The US holds non US transactions to a higher standard of proberity than
onshore (foreign corrupt practises act)

I am still guided by two principles on this - that complete openness and
transparency solves 80% of problems and rigorous competition solves the rest
(my favourite phrase - a billionaire is an example of market failure)

~~~
easytiger
> of dirty money to be laundered in the City of London

Nonsense in more ways than one

~~~
AndrewOMartin
Here's a publication from the UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Select Committee,
dated 21 May 2018, "Moscow's Gold: Russian Corruption in the UK".

[https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmfa...](https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmfaff/932/932.pdf)

This is the first sentence to mention money laundering "The Government
responded robustly to the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in
Salisbury in March 2018. But despite the strong rhetoric, President Putin and
his allies have been able to continue “business as usual” by hiding and
laundering their corrupt assets in London."

Section 3 is called "Closing the Laundromat".

Writing this comment served to remind me that the publications from the UK
Parliament are generally of very high quality (certainly anything I've ever
read).

~~~
easytiger
Precisely how does that support the statement that this is something specific
to London?

------
daneyh
I think the headline blows things out of proportion. The ECM Syndicate banks
overstated demand for a share sale, by the house bid....that the joint lead
managers would've been on the hook for anyway (if the demand wasn't there,
they had an underwriting backstop). Yes they should've stated the booksizes
included the joint lead manager interest but it isn't the as bad as the
article and respective comments on here make out.

Slap on the wrist at worst i'd say.

------
chroem-
Add that to this other news today about Deutsche Bank [1] and it really makes
you wonder whether we're approaching another Lehman Brothers moment.

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/deutsche-banks-u-s-
operations-d...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/deutsche-banks-u-s-operations-
deemed-troubled-by-fed-1527768310)

~~~
walterbell
One of the largest shareholders in DB is ... China?
[https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/02/23/1519404195000/HNA-
via...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/02/23/1519404195000/HNA-via-GAR--The-
mystery-of-Deutsche-Bank-s-largest-shareholder/)

 _"..in summary: an opaque Chinese conglomerate says that it is the largest
shareholder of Germany’s biggest bank, and has claimed a seat on the board.
But the publicly available trail of information ends in Bermuda, obscuring a
crucial link in its convoluted chain of ownership, and the parties involved
seem reluctant to say anything about it."_

~~~
dil8
follow on article
[https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/04/19/1524132443000/Deutsch...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/04/19/1524132443000/Deutsche-
Bank--HNA--and-the-GAR-chase/)

------
davidhyde
> "The allegations were "highly technical" and involved "an area of financial
> markets activity that has not been considered by any Australian court" or by
> regulators, Citigroup said in a statement." So they found a highly technical
> loophole with no legal history. Very bad for PR because the public will not
> understand it and believe any negative simplified summary. They also stand
> to be slapped with a huge fine. I don't understand why they would take such
> a big risk. Must be desperate times.

------
pasbesoin
Let my haul out my frustration from some of the Obama-era "enforcement":

No jail? You fail.

