Drug War Profiteers: Book Exposes How Wachovia Bank Laundered Millions for Mexican Cartels

From Democracy Now:

But what was found was that $110 million—small change—was directly connected to four drug deals in Mexico involving the Sinaloa Cartel, but that the staggering figure of $378 billion—that’s a lot of money—was insufficiently monitored. Now, we don’t know how much of that was connected to drug deals. It could be anything between naught and $378 billion. But it gives us a glimpse of the size, of the volume, the quantity of the money involved. These were coming through things called casas de cambio, holes in the wall, basically, exchange houses, not even a proper banking system. So we have a medium-sized bank, that kind of money.

Then, I thought, well, let’s set this in context. Talked to a man called Antonio Maria Costa, who’s the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. He’s not there any longer. He posits that the volumes of money coming in from Mexico, from—and obviously his speciality was Europe, Russia, you know, similar operations—laundering of vast quantities of the profits of drugs and, of course, the calamitous violence that is the scourge of Mexico, is basically propping up the banking system. It is a major pillar of the banking system. Without it, it would have collapsed long ago. Well, we know that the other pillar propping it up is tax dollars.

Click here to watch, read, or listen to the rest.

So, lots of places I could go with this. For instance, I could talk about how the War on Drugs has over the years literally developed a life of its own with people getting rich off of it, on both sides of the law, from both legitimate and illegitimate cash, and is therefore unlikely to end in our lifetimes. But that's not what's most important about this little excerpt.

What's important is to note that a significant portion of the entire global banking system may very well be based on laundering dirty money for organized crime. Did you get that? Too-big-to-fail banks are in league with international criminal enterprises. And they have profited handsomely from it.

For several years now I've enjoyed the little word-play joke "banksters" used by liberal bloggers and writers across the internet: it combines the word "banker" with the word "gangster" to get across the idea that these guys are criminals, which, for various reasons including but not limited to toxic mortgage securities, is entirely true. But if this allegation is true, then the bankers really are gangsters, making shit loads of money from the murder and mayhem produced on a massive scale by these drug cartels.

I've been saying for years now that these people just don't give a shit if people live or die, as long as they're making money. This big time money laundering operation would seem to totally confirm my assertions. Fucking scum bags.

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