The US has been engaged in the War on Terror for more than a decade, with hundreds of billions
of dollars being spent on bombs, jets, and drones that have done little more than make
defense contractors rich.
And while our government has been eager to fatten the wallets of defense contractors,
they're virtually ignoring one of the most effective ways to go after terrorists around
the globe, and that's to cut off their money.
The reason they're not going after that money is because some of the biggest banks in the
world, the same banks that Congress wants to deregulate even further, are helping to
launder money for terrorist groups.
In 2015 UBSAG paid millions of dollars to defend and settle what was characterized was
violations of US terrorism sanctions.
They thought it was a good idea to process hundreds of transactions worth millions of
dollars for entities that had been placed on terrorist blacklists.
They'd been warned about the terrorism blacklisting, but chose to ignore those warnings and take
profits anyway.
In 2016, HSBC was sued for laundering money for the cartel terrorists who murdered Americans.
The case was initiated in the Texas Federal Court and maintained that the London based
HSBC Bank had provided continuous, systematic support for laundering cartels terrorist money.
In 2012, Obama's then Attorney General Eric Holder fined HSBC almost two billion dollars
for engaging in cartel terrorist money laundering, and as you would expect for America's justice
department, nobody went to jail.
But as is usually the case when the government fails to act, civil lawsuits brought by lawmakers
and lawyers, they're there to protect the slack and in the last few years we've seen
a huge increase in the number of suits being filed against these criminal banking enterprises
that help terrorists send money all over the globe.
Joining me to talk about this is attorney Chris Paulos.
Chris, give us the big picture.
How are these banks playing a role in actually financing terrorism?
There's no question that that's going on, but most Americans don't understand how they
go about doing it.
Well, Pap, it's a common refrain that the lifeblood of terrorism is money.
And that's absolutely true.
Terrorism couldn't exist without sophisticated financing and ways in which money can be exchanged
to provide material support, and the farm of training, munitions, and so forth, even
safe haven for terrorists.
And in order to transfer money, or to get access to money, they need access to the US
financial system and the global financial system.
And banks, and other financial institutions, have been more than happy to provide that
for terrorist organizations, and fronts for terrorist organizations.
Tell us how banks can be held liable.
There's a pretty big threshold that has to be met.
How are you going after the banks?
Well, under US federal laws, specifically the Anti Terrorism Act, those who provide
financial support, or material support, to terrorist organizations can be held liable.
Now banks can either knowingly provide that support, or can recklessly provide that support.
And oftentimes, banks don't have the necessary compliance tools, or don't use the tools that
they're required to in order to track their customers, or to know their customers better.
And so, banks will provide financial services to organizations that have checkered pasts,
or that have business dealings with individuals that have been designated by the US government
and other governments globally, as terrorist organizations.
And it's the bank's duty to understand who they're doing business with.
And what we've seen over the last two decades, is that they've just simply turned a blind
eye to that duty.
You know, back in 2012 the guy called "Let 'em go" Eric Holder, hit HSB with a fine of
almost two billion dollars for their role in laundering money for terrorists.
But you know what, there again, Eric Holder let them go.
The Obama administration let them go, nobody went to jail, and we found after 2012, they
just started it all over again.
They had documents, Chris, as you know, that was very clear who made the decisions in the
bank.
They didn't have to arrest the bank and throw the bank in jail, they knew the people involved,
they had the names of the people involved that made these decisions, but Eric Holder
... and let me just preface it this, people don't realize Eric Holder comes from a law
firm that actually represents these types of white collar criminals, he's back with
them, by the way, Covington Burling in Washington DC.
So he's used to defending these white collar criminals, but to have them dead to rights
and let them go like he did, it's pathetic, and most people don't even know that story,
do they?
No, unfortunately, it did get a little press, but not a lot, not as much as you'd expect,
when these banks actually have admitted to the wrongdoing, they've admitted that they
were processing hundreds of billions of dollars in transactions for entities that they weren't
either keeping track of, or that were known to be affiliated with terrorist organizations.
And they were simply slapped on the wrist.
A two billion dollar fine for a bank like HSBC is a week's worth of profits, it's nothing,
it's now essentially a cost of doing business, and a perfect example of the revolving door
policies that we see coming out of Washington when folks who are charged with regulating
certain industries, specifically the financial industry, who are holding out for a better
job in the private sector, usually with one of these banks that they're investigating,
or trying to hold accountable.
Well what's so amazing on this is that they actually wrote out a document where they said,
"Yes, we did this.
Yes, we laundered money.
Yes, we knew it was going for terrorists.
Yes, we know people would be affected, killed by that process."
They actually signed a document to that effect, Eric Holder had all he needed to do to throw
these white collar thugs in prison, and took a pass on it, didn't do it, and then, after
he left the Attorney General's office, he goes to work with Covington Burling, which
represents some of these same people.
You know, there was a massive Congressional investigation into this issue not long ago.
Can you tell us what that investigation found?
You're right, Pap.
Congress investigated specifically HSBC and what it's conduct was related to providing
financial services to drug cartels, as well as state sponsors of terrorists such as Iran,
and other designated entities.
And Congress essentially uncovered what was happening inside this bank, and it was revealed,
at that time, that HSBC was doing this, they knew they were doing it, they were internally
flagging accounts for closure because of the risks associated with those accounts, and
then never closing the accounts because the money, through the drug cartels and the terrorist
organizations, was just too good for HSBC to turn down.
And unfortunately, they didn't stop doing it when they should have, and this clearly
financed many of the drug cartels, and many terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
Ultimately, HSBC never denied that that's what they did.
They went in front of Congress and said, "Yes, we did this.
And we will do better."
That was it.
So, they essentially came clean, but that's all that came of it, was a pittance of a fine
at the end of the day.
Yeah, what if the average American, Chris, appeared in front of Congress and said, "Yeah,
we washed money for people that we knew were involved in the process of killing Americans.
Yeah, we did that.
As a matter of fact, we knew exactly what we were doing, and oh, by the way, we made
a lot of money doing that."
What if the average American appeared in front of Congress and testified to that?
But that's what happened in this country, and Eric Holder and the Obama administration,
allowed it to happen.
And nobody was prosecuted, and because of that, we know see that other banks were also
involved as well, right?
We've got other people involved besides HSBC.
You brought a lawsuit against these banks, didn't you?
It's pretty shocking, Pap.
I mean, the black letter of the law shows that there's no difference between somebody
who commits terrorism and somebody who financed terrorism.
Same with drug cartels.
If you finance drug cartels, or wash their money, or launder their money, you might as
well be the drug cartel itself.
But you can bet your bottom dollar that if the drug cartel, or the leader of Hezbollah
came in front of Congress or the Department of Justice and said, "You know what, I'll
just give you two billion dollars, and don't prosecute me," you know the US government
wouldn't take that deal.
But yet when it's got the cloak of a corporation, or when it's a global bank and white shoe
firms helping grease the skids, you get these types of deals, and you see the imbalance
of justice.
Yeah, I mean we expected this from the Bush administration, but when you had Obama come
into office, and he said, "Look, you know, we're going to change the way we do business
in DC where it comes to corporate criminals."
So it wasn't just Eric Holder, it was Loretta Lynch who came after him, she had all of the
information, they make this big proclamation about ... I remember the press conference,
like, "Oh, this is huge, we got two billion dollars."
And somebody in the audience asked, "Well, who did you prosecute?"
And they said, "Well, we're not really going to ... " It was the most ridiculous exchange
between the Justice Department and the questions out in the audience by the reporters saying,
"Wait, I don't get this.
They just admitted that they engaged in criminal conduct that cost American's lives, and nobody's
being prosecuted."
So after that, as you would expect, other banks said, "Well, heck, we'll do it too."
Isn't that kind of what happened here?
Yeah, it's essentially what HSBC was doing wasn't any different than what other global
banks were doing, and since then, other global banks too have been arm wrestled to the negotiating
table and have been able to pay fines to get out from underneath criminal investigations,
while admitting that they were also providing financial transactions to drug cartels and
terrorists.
And not only that, these banks were teaching these individuals and entities how to get
away with masking these financial transactions.
So even if these banks were to stop what they were doing, they've already trained the bad
actors on how to do it, and so these folks will just go to another bank and do the same
sorts of things.
Well, you know, as I say, Eric Holder after ... first of all, sorry, here.
Covington Burling represented most of these same banks.
So he's Attorney General, he gives them a free pass for murder, actually mass murder
of Americans.
Then after he does that, he goes back to work for Covington Burling.
Seems to be like there ought to be a Congressional investigation of that.
Look, how successful do you think these lawsuits can actually be in not only helping victims
recover damages, but also in preventing future damages, what's your take?
I think these lawsuits will be successful, Pap, particularly when we're starting to see
de-regulations, or regulations being rolled back by the current administration.
Somebody has to hold these banks accountable, and it's going to be the people who themselves
who were actually injured by these terrorists and these drug cartels who can use the current
federal laws under the Anti Terrorism Act, to hold these banks responsible.
We think the facts are very strong, we think the evidence is very strong, so we think that
we can-
Yeah, I can-
Will be successful in these lawsuits.
Go get 'em Chris, and don't ... show enough facts to where you're going to embarrass,
I want you to embarrass the Department of Justice.
I want you to embarrass Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch for what they've done here, and then
maybe the next time this happens an Attorney General will be a little less likely to let
criminal murderers go free because they simply happen to have a lot of money.
Thanks for joining me.
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