Financial Transparency Coalition

Wednesday's Top News Stories from Global Financial Integrity.

Senator Carl Levin (aka “Watchdog of America”) is at it again. Yesterday morning the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which Senator Levin (D-MI) chairs, held a hearing to investigate HSBC, the UK-based bank and Europe’s largest financial institution, which has allegedly systematically (and knowingly) lapsed its anti-money laundering systems and allowed suspicious transactions into the United States. According to the subcommittee’s investigative report released Monday, HSBC systematically ignored warnings and failed to stop illegal behavior many times between 2001 and 2010. The report found HSBC accepted deposits intoU.S. branches from Mexican drug cartels, Saudi Arabian banks with terrorist ties,...

Govt moves to curb illegal capital flight The Daily Star (Bangladesh), July 16, 2012 Evidence of illicit financial flows from developing countries placed in Germany Trust Law, July 15, 2012 HSBC Nears Pact in Launder Probe The Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2012 Tax evasion, not corporate fraud, at Reebok India? The Times of India,

In this video, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime follows individual Euro bills as they are used illicitly, ultimately showing the annual $870 billion proceeds from criminal networks. The filmed transactions highlight profits by counterfeiting, illicit drug trafficking, human trafficking, and trading illegal arms.  The UNODC also captures the impact of this underground