Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal

[Jag_Warrior]

It's just sad that this is news. When a $50 money order can be traced from the U.S. to Al Qaeda, who in their right mind would believe that it's THAT hard to track incredibly large cash deposits in a country where the average person makes less than $2 per hour? :rolleyes: A friend of mine worked for Wachovia, before being laid off after the implosion in 2008/09. I told her she'd be better off getting away from that criminal operation. I had no idea how accurate my statement was.


Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet.

They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, Mexican prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else.

The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue.

Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html)

[Tazio]

Sadly Jag this does not surprise me at all!
Having my own small business I have occasion to visit almost all the big name banks for reasons like trying to expedite a project by cashing a deposit, for materials, on a job I have reservations about the clients solvency or intentions.
Here in San Diego they all advertise how easy and affordable it is to wire money to relations in Mexico. Yes specifically to Mexico. It is a cottage industry upon appearance, but in reality it's a built in money laundering platform. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out how to manipulate the system!

[Jag_Warrior]

I think it's only within the past few months that Mexico began cracking down on large deposits in general. And notice how little coverage this story has gotten in the U.S. If not for Bloomberg, I would have known nothing about it. Also notice the lack of criminal charges. "War on drugs" my butt! Where you live, what are the chances that someone from Al Qaeda is going to kill you versus a member of some drug gang, organized or otherwise? Which one is more likely? No different than where I live, what is driving the majority of social/safety concerns that you might have, drug fueled crime or "terrorism"?

My uncle is a retired Fed. He served under Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and G. Dubs. Under ALL of them, he told me that the "war on drugs" was just a dog & pony show being put on to satisfy the holy rollers and hayseeds. The main people they'd go after were the low hanging fruit. How often have we EVER heard about high level bankers getting pinched? Wachovia is now a busted bank and under the control of Wells Fargo. But there were people, who I assume are still alive and maybe working for Wachovia now, that executed these transactions. I suspect that they were/are VERY high level within the bank. Why haven't they been arrested? Why aren't they on the nightly news doing the perp walk? How many hedge funds based in the Caribbean Islands and in Latin America are fueled by drug profits?

But praise the Lord that we could trace that $50 money order sent from the U.S. to the Middle East. Yeppers. That surely did save some lives right there. :rolleyes:

[Tazio]

I think it's only within the past few months that Mexico began cracking down on large deposits in general. And notice how little coverage this story has gotten in the U.S. If not for Bloomberg, I would have known nothing about it. Also notice the lack of criminal charges. "War on drugs" my butt! Where you live, what are the chances that someone from Al Qaeda is going to kill you versus a member of some drug gang, organized or otherwise? Which one is more likely? No different than where I live, what is driving the majority of social/safety concerns that you might have, drug fueled crime or "terrorism"?

My uncle is a retired Fed. He served under Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and G. Dubs. Under ALL of them, he told me that the "war on drugs" was just a dog & pony show being put on to satisfy the holy rollers and hayseeds. The main people they'd go after were the low hanging fruit. How often have we EVER heard about high level bankers getting pinched? Wachovia is now a busted bank and under the control of Wells Fargo. But there were people, who I assume are still alive and maybe working for Wachovia now, that executed these transactions. I suspect that they were/are VERY high level within the bank. Why haven't they been arrested? Why aren't they on the nightly news doing the perp walk? How many hedge funds based in the Caribbean Islands and in Latin America are fueled by drug profits?

But praise the Lord that we could trace that $50 money order sent from the U.S. to the Middle East. Yeppers. That surely did save some lives right there. :rolleyes: The whole concept of "winning a war on drugs" or "winning a war on terrorism" is very naive. There will always be illicit drugs, and there will always be opportunities and volunteers to terrorize, period.
We need and expect are leaders and citizens to be vigilant whether it is making a tough choice by exposing your offspring as a user or just keeping your head up and your eyes open to your environment. There is an old axiom, I don't know where it came from but it explains why these things simply are, and also why we failed in Viet Nam Russia failed in Eastern Europe, and fascists will never succeed. "The attacker must vanquish. The defender need only survive".