Opinion Sur
Criminal behavior of major financial entities keeps coming into light. A major one done by the HSBC branch in Geneva is being unveiled. It is not the first time that this financial entity is involved in this type of operations. On December 12th, 2012, Reuters, AP, and EFE reported that “HSBC, the bank with highest market value, accepted to pay a record fine of 1.9 billion dollars to the United States government to end the accusations of the authorities regarding money-laundry that benefited drug traffickers, such as the Mexican cartels, and Iranian extremist groups.” A US Senate report had denounced HSBC and its subsidiaries for making secret transactions with Iran for 16 billion dollars and the Mexican cartels for another 7 billion. The chronicle ended up saying that the applied sanction was equivalent to just 9% of the corporation profits in 2012 and that the London Stock Exchange was pleased with the agreement: the price of HSBC stock went up by 0.3%. Jimmy Gurule, former US Undersecretary of Justice (Assistant Attorney General), said that the agreement was a mockery because it did not provide criminal indictment for none of the executives that participated in the operation. It is highly unlikely that this type of fines would stop those who commit crimes and that, in addition, only pay if they are caught.
Nothing is said about the victims of those criminal operations: deaths and disassemble of families, drug trafficking, human trafficking, weaponry for criminals, aggravated corruption. It is like if they do not exist or are needed “externalities” to obtain exorbitant rates of return and the resulting bonuses for the greedy executives.
On top of that once caught, a gigantic campaign to clean up their image starts to anaesthetizing public opinion and keep on operating as if nothing serious had happened. Some media add up their connivance by avoiding major headlines and diverting the coverage to inner sections with less social repercussions. At the same time, a massive obviously paid advertisement flood the main spaces of those same media. Financial crimes and complicities: one more time.
Greetings,
The Editors
