/ Modified feb 22, 2017 5:36 p.m.

Banks Wasting Billions Monitoring for Cartel Laundering, Lobby Says

Group wants the government to carry out the investigations.

Money Dollars Economy

A lobbying group for the country’s biggest banks says they waste billions of dollars a year investigating potential money laundering involving Mexican and other Latin American crime cartels.

You may not have heard of The Clearing House but you’ve heard of the banks it lobbies for: Bank of America, Wells Fargo and HSBC, which in 2012 was slapped with the biggest fine in banking history. HSBC Holdings had allowed itself to be used by the Sinaloa Cartel and the Colombia Norte del Valle Cartel to launder cash.

HSBC was fined $1.9 billion because banks are supposed to police themselves to stop that kind of financial crime. The Clearing House is asking the Trump administration to take up money laundering investigations itself.

“Catching criminals is the government’s job. It’s society’s job. But they’re asking banks to pay in the billions of dollars a year of extra cost,” said Stan Smith, an economist and banking expert. “That gets passed on to you and me that have bank accounts.”

The lobbying group said it spends $8 billion a year reporting transactions as small as $10,000 in withdrawals. The Trump administration, which has said it would ease some regulations but at the same time would target terror groups, has not yet made a decision on the request.

Fronteras Desk
This story is from the Fronteras Desk, a collaboration of Southwestern public radio stations, including NPR 89.1. Read more from the Fronteras Desk.
By posting comments, you agree to our
AZPM encourages comments, but comments that contain profanity, unrelated information, threats, libel, defamatory statements, obscenities, pornography or that violate the law are not allowed. Comments that promote commercial products or services are not allowed. Comments in violation of this policy will be removed. Continued posting of comments that violate this policy will result in the commenter being banned from the site.

By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
The University of Arizona