Across the world, HSBC likes to sell itself as 'the world’s local bank', the friendly face of corporate and personal finance. However, the same bank was hit with a record U.S. fine of $1.9 billion for facilitating money laundering for 'drug kingpins and rogue nations'.
This session will analyze how a bank that boasts 'we're committed to helping protect the world's financial system on which millions of people depend by only doing business with customers who meet our high standards of transparency' came to provide services to now-imprisoned Mexian drugs lord El Chapo and his barbaric group of gangsters and ask why none of its representatives were criminally prosecuted..
The story starts in Hong Kong and ranges across London, Washington, the Cayman Islands and Mexico, where HSBC saw the opportunity to become the largest bank in the world, and El Chapo seized the chance to fuel his murderous empire by laundering his drug proceeds through the bank. It brings together an extraordinary cast of politicians, bankers, drug dealers, FBI officers, and whistle-blowers.
Speakers
