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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 6:27 pm Post subject: |
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The second ponzi scheme to be revealed (and many more are to come) has links with Mexican cartels.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/22/allen-stanford-drugs-trade-mexico
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The FBI is probing possible money laundering linked to Mexico's infamous narco-trafficking Gulf Cartel in its investigation of Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford, US law enforcement sources have told the Observer.
An FBI source close to the investigation would not give exact details but confirmed the agency was looking at links to international drug gangs as part of the huge investigation into Stanford's banking activities. Reports in the US have said Mexican authorities have detained one of Stanford's private planes as part of an investigation into possible links to the Gulf Cartel. It has been alleged cheques found inside the plane were linked to the cartel, which is one of the most violent criminal organisations in the world.
Sources in the US Drug Enforcement Administration also confirmed that while the investigations into Stanford's affairs were "with the FBI and Securities Exchange Commission, there may well have been a trail connecting his Mexican affairs to narco-trafficking interests. So far as we understand from information partially in the public domain, this has pertained to the Gulf Cartel, and items found aboard a private light aircraft. I think we'll find that any possible drug-related trail and SEC priorities are not all in the same frame."
Asked whether the aircraft seizures were an isolated incident in the overall investigation, the official said: "It's not going to be as if they would check every plane. Any connections to the narcos would have been followed for some time, and US law enforcement has been working with Mexico's banking regulators on a vast range of investigations, including Stanford's interests, for some time.
"This would not be the first investigation like this following trans-border investments to lead to narco-traffic interests."
While Mexico's current narco war, which has claimed 7,000 lives in two years, has been billed as one "between cartels", it is, on the ground, something closer to an anarchic scramble between street-level gangs to whom dealing and smuggling have been "outsourced", while the Gulf Cartel and its peers concern themselves with a takeover of the Mexican economy and all-out war against what is left of the Mexican state the cartels do not control.
Another US drug enforcement official said: "Any major US interest seeking to avoid fully disclosed investments would have to go to pretty careful lengths to avoid encountering cartel interests, and anyone seeking to conceal or launder money would find it in safe and lucrative hands were they to forge alliances with, rather than skirt, the cartels.
"Through the other end of the lens, anyone wanting to help the cartels launder their money would find them accommodating in terms of remuneration, but that's nothing anyone will confirm for Stanford right now."
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So, these guys were cleaning money for Mexicans and Madoff was cleaning money for the Russian mafia.
Apparently drug money is helping prop up American banks:
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| Costa said: "In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system�s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor." |
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/91579
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| VIENNA (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, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday. |
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE50O19Y20090125
So, there is a banking industry benefit to the war on drugs. I'm so surprised.
http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=112160
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Kucinich: Who Told SEC to "Stand Down" on Stanford Probe?
Chairman of Domestic Policy Subcommittee Opens Inquiry
Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Washington, Feb 20 -
Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today sent a letter to Ms. Mary Schapiro, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requesting documents that could reveal which government agency told the SEC to "stand down" rather than take enforcement action against the Stanford Group in October 2006 as has been reported by the New York Times.
Recent media reports have indicated that the SEC was aware of improprieties at Stanford Financial Group as early as October 2006, but withheld action at the request of another government agency.
In a report published in the February 17th edition of the New York Times, an SEC official said that an inquiry had been opened on Stanford in October of 2006. According to the Times report, an associate regional director of enforcement said the SEC "stood down" on its investigation as a result of the intervention of another federal agency.
Stanford is now the focus of an $8 billion fraud investigation and, presumably, an earlier inquiry would have spared many Stanford investors and triggered similar inquiries into other funds which lacked transparency.
"The SEC's recent filing against Stanford stemmed from the 2006 SEC inquiry that had been apparently shelved at the request of the unnamed agency. If this is true, we must find out why the SEC delayed enforcement, and if there were other cases where other government agencies intervened to block enforcement,� Chairman Kucinich said.
"If the SEC did indeed begin an inquiry in 2006 and was called off by another agency, our subcommittee will demand that the SEC reveal the name of that agency which told it not to enforce federal laws which protect investors," said Chairman Kucinich. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Apparently drug money is helping prop up American banks... |
Do not be naive, Mises. Drug money, and indeed organized-crime money, is almost certainly propping up a great deal of things in the global economy.
It is called "corruption" and it exists almost everywhere. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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| There is a good argument to be made that Hong Kong is the product of huge amounts of cash from mainland Chinese criminal syndicates. It wasn't 'free markets', trade etc but a massive capital base that allowed Hong Kong's banks to lend a great deal both at home and abroad. |
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