HSBC | SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE: UTTER HYPOCRISY
The big banks have laundered hundreds of billions of dollars for drug cartels. See this, this, this, this, this and this (indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis).
The HSBC employee who blew the whistle on the banks’ money laundering for terrorists and drug cartels says said: “America is losing the drug war because our banks are [still] financing the cartels“, and “Banks financing drug cartels … affects every single American“.
And see this.)
And yet the banks refuse to provide banking services for LEGAL marijuana in states like Colorado which have blessed the sale of pot.
The Feds are a big part of the problem. After all, they support some ruthless, criminal drug cartels.
On the other hand, the sale of marijuana is still illegal under Federal law pursuant to the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq.
This is true even in California and other states which have allow medical or recreational marijuana. U.S. v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Co-op (2001) 532 U.S. 483 (medical necessity is not an exception to 21 U.S.C., §841(a)(1) governing the federal prohibition against manufacture and distribution of marijuana).
As the New York Times reported in May of 2011:
Just before Wachovia Bank was set to fail, Wells Fargo was forced to clean up the mess in 2008. This bank payed out 160 million dollars in fines for money laundering Mexican cartel drug money. It was stated that Wachovia could not account for 420 BILLION dollars of money transfers with Mexico over the course of a few years. The elite banksters have no financial incentive to handle “legal” drug money transactions. Their cut of the business is chump change compared to the business they now engage in.