[ad_1]
A leak of more than 2,000 confidential United States government documents revealed how some of the world’s largest banks allowed millions of dollars to be transferred fraudulently around the world even after having proof of the deception.
The files, known as FinCEN, son 2,657 files, among which are 2,100 Suspicious Activity Reports (or SARs), which include information on transactions that raise suspicions to the banks themselves.
SARs do not necessarily refer to crimes nor do they constitute evidence of crimes. However, any concerns regarding transactions made in US dollars should be reported to the US Department of the Treasury Financial Crime Control Network (FinCEN, for its acronym in English), even if it takes place outside of that country, and in case they have evidence of criminal activity practices they must stop moving their money.
The files were leaked to the portal Buzzfeed and shared with him International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the organization that also coordinated the investigation of the Panama Papers and that this time organized a team of more than 400 journalists from 110 media outlets in 88 countries to investigate the archives.
The ICIJ assured in an extensive report that the analyzed records of leaked documents estimate that global banks JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon they have continued to benefit from powerful and dangerous players.
The result of these investigations, which according to the ICIJ is “a true world tour of crime, corruption and inequality, with leading roles for politicians, oligarchs and swindlers, and key roles for bankers that serve them all, “began to be published this Sunday by the consortium partners.
In total, according to the ICIJ, the documents show transactions for a total amount of at least 2 trillion dollars, accomplished between 1999 and 2017, including $ 514 billion at JPMorgan and $ 1.3 trillion at Deutsche Bank.
At the local level, Journalistic Investigation Center (Ciper), a member of the consortium, said today that he had access and reviewed all the leaked reports related to banks, companies and people linked to Chile, “Several of the documents were incomplete and there was no indicative information that would make it possible to follow the route of potential illicit operations or money laundering.”
JPMORGAN, THE MOST INDICATED
The analysis points out that JPMorgan, the largest bank based in the United States, transferred money to individuals and companies linked to the massive looting of public funds in Malaysia, Venezuela and Ukraine.
The work of the consortium of journalists also showed, according to the article, that the bank also processed more than $ 50 million in payments over a decade for Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign manager Donald Trump.
They explain that the bank transferred at least $ 6.9 million in Manafort transactions in the fourteen months after he resigned from the campaign.
On the other hand, the British bank HSBC, the largest in the UK, “It allowed scammers to move millions of dollars of stolen money around the world, even after learning from US investigators that it was part of a scam,” according to the public channel BBC, who led the investigation on British soil.
According to the report, in response to questions asked to the bank, the JPMorgan indicated that it is legally prohibited to talk about customers or transactions, and HSBC replied in the same way.
Also, according to BBC, the analysis found evidence that one of the closest associates of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, used Barclays Bank in London to avoid sanctions that were intended to prevent him from using financial services in the West. Part of the cash was used to buy works of art.
Meanwhile, according to the same medium, it was revealed that the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates did not act on warnings about a local company that was helping Iran evade sanctions, according to the files.
For his part, German bank moved dirty money from money launderers to organized crime, terrorists and drug traffickers, the chain added.
Likewise, Standard chartered moved cash for Arab Bank for more than a decade after customer accounts at the Jordanian bank were used to finance terrorist activities, the investigation reported.
