This wasn’t meant to happen in the last decade.
Money laundering regulation was meant to have stopped the handling of drug cash in the USA.
The Patriot Act was meant to have closed down such things.
The FATF 49 recommendations were meant to have been in place.
But as the Observer reported yesterday, US bank Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo, money laundered hundreds of billions for Mexican drug gangs in the USA. And, when the activity was questioned internally from London, the money laundering officer who did so was driven out.
As the violence spread, billions of dollars of cartel cash began to seep into the global financial system. But a special investigation by the Observer reveals how the increasingly frantic warnings of one London whistleblower were ignored
As the United States budget deficit currently looms large in the national conversation, Lesley Stahl of CBS News’ 60 Minutesexplored American companies’ use of tax havens this past Sunday (Watch the full segment in the video below). Every year, U.S. companies avoid paying $60 billion in tax by moving the “headquarters” of their corporations abroad, at least on paper. As Stahl notes, this is not a new issue as American companies also moved their assets abroad in...
I have found a number for the amount of dirty money that is attracted into the United States on account of the secrecy facilities it provides: US$3 trillion. Yes, three trillion dollars. Which goes quite some way to explaining why the United States came top of the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index.
The number comes from a letter to Tim Geithner, US Treasury Secretary, sent by every single member of the Florida Delegation to the House of Representatives. They are whinnying about new proposed IRS regulations for the United States to be more transparent about what foreigners earn there. Currently, almost...
