International banking giant HSBC may have financed terrorist groups and funneled Mexican drug money into the US economy through its lax policies, a damning Senate report reveals. The bank’s bosses have apologized for the misconduct.
David Bagley, HSBC’s Head of Group Compliance, admitted during a Senate subcommittee hearing that the company had made a number of lapses, adding that he planned to resign.
“I recognize that there have been some significant areas of failure,” Bagley told the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation. “I have said before and I will say again: despite the best efforts and intentions of many dedicated professionals, HSBC has fallen short of our own expectations and the expectations of our regulators.”
Irene Dorner, CEO and President of the bank’s American operation (HBUS), told the panel that HSBC deeply regrets the lapses in oversight, apologizing for the company’s mistakes.
Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the subcommittee, gave details of one such intricate scheme to launder cash between 2006 and 2009.
“Because our tough AML (anti-money laundering) laws in the United States have made it hard for drug cartels to find a US bank willing to accept huge unexplained deposits of cash, they now smuggle US dollars across the border into Mexico and look for a Mexican bank, or ‘casa de cambio’ to take the cash.,” Levin noted. “Some of those casas de cambio had accounts at HB Mexico, which, in turn, took all the physical dollars that it got, transported them by armored car or aircraft back across the border to HBUS for deposit in its US Banknotes account, completing the laundering cycle.”
The Senator welcomed HSBC’s apologies, but said it also had to be held accountable. He called on the bank to consider shutting down its Mexican affiliate, as well as other banks suspected of providing funding for terrorists.
Earlier, Levin said “the culture at HSBC was pervasively polluted for a long time.”
The findings are the results of a year-long Senate probe into HSBC’s activities, highlighting systemic negligence throughout the bank’s international structure. The probe was published in a 340-page report in Washington on Tuesday.
Financing terror and flouting the rules
HSBC’s activities in Saudi Arabia were brought into question in the report, specifically referencing banking with Al Rajhi Bank. The investigation claims the Saudi bank has links to financing terrorism based on evidence gathered after the September 11 attacks.
Information collated by investigators suggests one of Al Rajhi’s founders was an “early financial benefactor of al-Qaeda.”
HSBC forbade its affiliates from doing business with the Saudi bank in 2005, but this policy was overturned only a few months later when the banks resumed dealings.
In addition, the report cites dealings with two Bangladeshi banks thought to have links with terrorist organizations.
“From an oversight perspective, the failure of accountability here is dramatic,” Senator Levin commented.
The probe also details how the bank bypassed US safeguards that protect against transactions potentially involving terrorists, drug lords, and rogue regimes. The investigations committee alludes to almost 25,000 transactions to Iran amounting to over $19 billion conducted through the bank’s US office over a period of seven years. The bank did not disclose that the funds were being sent to Iran.
Narco-banking
The reports cities HSBC’s activities in Mexico, highlighting the fact that the country was treated as a long-risk client despite being a known hub for drug trafficking and money laundering.
It gives reference to the banking conglomerate’s Mexican affiliate transporting a total of $7 billion in hard cash to HBUS from 2007 to 2008. The sheer quantity of capital transferred raised concerns that some of it came from illegal drugs sales in the US.
The report also implicates the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a US financial regulator, for failing to regulate HSBC’s activities.
The OCC reported multiple failings on the part of HSBC in 2010 to implement anti-money laundering measures, namely its failure to monitor $60 trillion in bank transfers and 17,000 account alerts detailing suspicious activity.
The Senate report lays the blame for HSBC’s negligence over the past six years partly at the feet of the OCC for its lack of action in spite of consistent evidence of the bank’s money laundering issues.
“We have learned a great deal working with the subcommittee on this case history and also working with US regulatory authorities, and recognize that our controls could and should have been stronger and more effective in order to spot and deal with unacceptable behavior,” HSBC said in a statement. The bank also emphasize that they had already taken “concrete steps” to address the issues including drastic changes to “strengthen compliance, risk management and culture.”
The new report comes after the UK’s largest bank revealed it would have to pay a $1 billion fine to US authorities for money laundering offenses committed between 2004 and 2010.
Today was a Truly Dark Night for fans of the movie Batman, Dark Knight Rises!
Yet another reason to carry a gun for your own protection, in a society that has gone mad!
Aurora Chief of Police Daniel Oates told a news conference that only one man was involved, contrary to initial reports that there may have been an accomplice.
DHS Warned About Threats In Movie TheatersThe Department of Homeland Security in a May 17, 2012 memo, warned that American movie theaters were increasingly likely targets for terrorist attacks, primarily because they packed many people into one tightly confined place. An early April 2012 suicide bombing of a theater in Somalia and a violent extremist communication advocating attacks on US theaters highlight terrorists’ continued interest in attacking such venues. Although we have no specific or credible information indicating that terrorists plan to attack theaters in the United States, terrorists may seek to emulate overseas attacks on theaters here in the United States because they have the potential to inflict mass casualties and cause local economic damage.Colorado police have said that the Aurora killings do not appear to be linked to terrorist activity.– Sam Stein
Colorado Batman shooting shows obvious signs of being staged
The horrific shooting at the screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado late last night bears eerie similarities to a scene in the 1986 comic Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In the comic, a crazed, gun-toting loner walks into a movie theater and begins shooting it up, killing three in the process. The passage concludes with the media blaming Batman for inspiring the shooting, though he is not involved in the incident at all.
The 1986 comic, written and drawn by Frank Miller, was a key inspiration for the Chris Nolan Batman films. It helped to reimagine the character away from his Saturday morning cartoon image and into a dark, grim avenger. The point of this particular scene in the comic was to show just how far Gotham has fallen since Batman had retired. Source
Batman Shooting Foretold In 1986 “Dark Knight” Comic
In other words, this guy was equipped with exotic gear by someone with connections to military equipment. SWAT clothing, explosives, complex booby-traps… c’mon, this isn’t a “lone gunman.” This is somebody who was selected for a mission, given equipment to carry it out, then somehow brainwashed into getting it done.
This is not your run-of-the-mill crime of passion. It was a carefully planned, heavily funded and technically advanced attack. Who might be behind all this? The FBI, of course, which has a long history of setting up and staging similar attacks, then stopping them right before they happen. See four documented stories on these facts:
The New York Times is now reporting:
Billy Kromka, a pre-med student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, worked with Mr. Holmes for three months last summer as a research assistant in a lab of at the Anschutz Medical Campus. Mr. Kromka said he was surprised to learn Mr. Holmes was the shooting suspect. “It was just shocking, because there was no way I thought he could have the capacity to do commit an atrocity like this,” he said. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/colorado-mall-shooting.html?page…)
“He spent much of his time immersed in the computer, often participating in role-playing online games…”
There is already conjecture that James Holmes may have been involved in mind-altering neuroscience research and ended up becoming involved at a depth he never anticipated. His actions clearly show a strange detachment from reality, indicating he was not in his right mind. That can only typically be accomplished through drugs, hypnosis or trauma (and sometimes all three).
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Thomas Jefferson
“There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice; not by instruction but by natural intuition: I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.” Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) Roman Orator and Statesman at the trial of T. Annius Milo in 52 BC
“The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.” President James Monroe (November 16, 1818)
“Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.” John Locke (1632-1704) English philosopher and political theorist.
Before Heath Ledger died, he was in a movie where he “killed himself” with an all seeing eye marked on his forehead, then he played the joker in “the dark knight”.. Then he killed himself accidentally.. (not, he was killed in elite ritual). then as soon as they are trying to pass the UN gun ban, some respected astute medical intelligent lab student (who none of his colleagues could have ever imagined he’d ever do anything like what hes accused of,) with 20,000 dollars worth of very hard to get police swat and military grade equipment, kicks down a security door and blasts 71 people including children and infants with guns during a midnight showing of the new dark knight movie. I turn on the tv and there’s the batman movie.. so I decide to turn it off. I decide to play words with friends but that add that comes up after I play 1 game is about the new batman movie, so I said f*** it. Theyre cramming fear right down peoples throats. anyone who thinks the mainstream media are telling the truth, get off my facebook friends list. I’m trying to make room for smart people. ;)
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12 people are confirmed dead after a mad man hurled a tear gas bomb he then opened fire during a midnight screening of Dark Knight Rises, near Denver, Colorado in a small town called Aurora.
The 24-year-old man – named by US media as James Holmes – after giving up he was arrested in a car parked nearby and is now in custody. He was reportedly armed with a rifle and two handguns and told police he had explosives at his home, which has been surrounded by a SWAT team.
James Holmes is suspected of opening fire and killing 12 people at a cinema
Witnesses said the shooter was wearing a “Bane-style” gas mask and body armour during the attack. A bomb disposal squad is at the scene examining a Hyundai in the cinema’s car park for further explosive devices.
Justin Joseph, of Fox affiliate KDVR said the tear gas caused “mass panic” and that as people got up and tried to flee the theatre, they became “moving targets” as the gunman opened fire.
12 people have been confirmed dead in the attacks
Several children and babies were in the theatre and an 80-year-old is believed to have been shot dead at point blank range. A three-month old is among those being treated in hospital and a six-year-old is believed to be the youngest victim.
The screening was taking place at the Century 16 Theatre in Aurora and the trailers for the film had just ended when the attack began.
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Anti Deep State Party 