Wachovia Admits It Laundered Millions in Mexican Drug Cash
Information Liberation

Wachovia bank executives have admitted that the banking giant laundered millions of dollars for Mexican drug lords between 2003 and 2008, prosecutors announced in Miami this afternoon.

​The bank has promised to pay $160 million in fines and penalties and to set up new safeguards within a year to prevent drug money from coming through the bank.

If it fails in that effort, Wachovia could face criminal charges, says Jeffrey Sloman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District.

"Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations," Sloman said at a meeting in downtown Miami. "[They] laundered at least $110 million in drug proceeds."

The feds built a case against Wachovia around the bank's relationship with Mexican exchange banks called CDCs (or casas de cambio).

Wachovia execs knew as early as 1996 that the Mexican CDCs were hot spots for drug money but kept doing business with them anyway, Sloman says.

The American bank routed billions of dollars in the past ten years through the CDCs without any effective oversight into where the cash was coming from.

Prosecutors were able to trace some of that money to the purchase of several airplanes used in drug runs, which led to more than 20,000 kilos of cocaine being seized by investigators.

Under an agreement signed by federal Judge Joan Leonard this afternoon, Wachovia will forfeit $110 million in illegal proceeds from drug sales and pay an additional $50 million fine.

Cele Castillo Headed to Prison & Needs Your Help

Folks this guy is an American hero who sacrificed his
career and risked his life to expose CIA & DEA drug
trafficking!!
Vietnam veteran and former DEA agent Celerino 'Cele' Castillo III is getting ready to serve a 22
month jail sentence. Listen to Cele tell his side of the story in this exclusive telephone interview with Kevin Booth, recorded July 15, 2009.

MP3 Link: http://www.sacredcow.com/cele_715.mp3

Cele needs all the media attention he can get, so please pass this on to whoever you can. You can donate to Cele's legal fund at his website - http://powderburns.info

This is only the latest twist in the long story of Cele's life, known to many from "American Drug War" and his auto-biography "Powderburns". For more info on the case, read Bill Conroy's report from The Narcoshpere on NarcoNews.com: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/...-federal-prison

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This is what you are financing by maintaining your money in a large corporate bank

UN crime chief says drug money flowed into banks
Reuters

"The United Nations' crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis . .

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had found evidence that 'interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities. . ' "

But wait a minute, the US government said this years ago:

"The International Monetary Fund estimates that the amount of money laundering occurring on a yearly basis could range between 2 and 5 percent of the world's gross domestic product--or somewhere between $600 billion and $1.5 trillion. Estimates come from a variety of sources based upon both macroeconomic theories and on microeconomic approaches. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has suggested that $600 billion represents a conservative estimate of the amount of money laundered each year, and some U.S. law makers believe that, not only does the amount lie somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion, but that half is being laundered through U.S. banks."
"Money Laundering", FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin v.70 no.5 (May 2001): p.1-9