HSBC was fined $1.9 billion for processing (not profiting) $881 million + $660 million. Their profit was probably only a few percent of that. But even if they simply took all $1.5b as profit, they still were fined more than that.
You might say they probably laundered more money than that. You're probably right. But it ain't what you know, it's what you can prove.
Assuming the bank profits a few percent, a $1.9 billion fine wipes out the profit from 10s, maybe 100s of billions of laundered money.
And nobody went to jail. Which is the point of the argument. HSBC are STILL trading and moving money today.
This was also not the first time HSBC was caught doing this.
Nothing has changed. They made the losses back. I know execs calculate fines as operational expenses because I've helped them do it (granted not HSBC but people aren't too disimilar from each other)
That is the very different problem of willingness to punish "system-critical" money launderers, versus the ability to detect rogue money launderers. Failure on one problem does not invalidate efforts on the other.
What is the difference between the two? Organized crime always goes through banking insiders, it just makes sense. That's how high level bankers get rich generally.
I’m not so sure about that. In my country (Hungary) actually all big crimes have to go through the prime minister, he’s working together with the national bank and lots of other politicians, bankers and lawyers to steal the EU money that the country gets. Otherwise it’s a peaceful country (that is getting less peaceful as the government steals more of the economy).
Big crimes make the news, small crimes are when people are getting mugged. Both types of crime are significant, but small crimes are vastly more common.
