Through all of the highlights and numbers tracked in the HSBC Holdings PLC money laundering scandal, it’s worth noting that none of it would have happened if not for the bank having such risky customers.
That being said, a dive into the U.S. Senate subcommittee report on HSBC provides a glimpse of whose money the bank was willing to take:
- Taliban – The Taliban had two U.S. dollar correspondent accounts in the U.K. at HSBC…
- Bank Melli – The Iranian financial institution under U.S. sanctions conducted business with HSBC units through U-turn transactions that also involved cover payments and altering the payment instructions from Iranian banks…
- Casa de Cambio Puebla — A licensed foreign exchange money- house founded in 1985 with branches throughout Mexico…
- Zhenly Ye Gon– A prominent Chinese-Mexican businessman who owned three Mexican companies involved in the pharmaceutical field. He was charged by the U.S. with using his corporations to import, manufacture and sell chemicals to drug cartels for making methamphetamine…
- Al Rajhi Bank – Saudi Arabia’s largest private bank. According to the Senate report, evidence began to emerge after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that some of its owners had links to organizations associated with financing terror, including one of the founders being an early financial benefactor of al Qaeda…
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