Back in 2012, HSBC had an embarrassing public relations problem.



A report compiled for the committee detailed how HSBC's subsidiaries transported billions of dollars of cash in armoured vehicles, cleared suspicious travellers' cheques worth billions, and allowed Mexican drug lords buy to planes with money laundered through Cayman Islands accounts.

Other subsidiaries moved money from Iran, Syria and other countries on US sanctions lists, and helped a Saudi bank linked to al-Qaida to shift money to the US.

The DOJ admitted that drug dealers would sometimes come to HSBC's Mexican branches and "deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows."

Talk about 'subtle'.

I say it was a PR problem, not a criminal problem, because the DOJ famously announced that HSBC was "Too Big To Jail".

As part of the deal, HSBC was put on a so-called deferred prosecution agreement. That agreement is now set to expire.



The deferred prosecution agreement was set to expire on Monday if HSBC stayed out of trouble. The bank, which is based in Britain but generates more than half of its profit in Asia, said the Justice Department was expected to file a motion to dismiss the case in federal court in Brooklyn after the agreement concluded.

“HSBC is able to combat financial crime much more effectively today as the result of the significant reforms we have implemented over the last five years,” Stuart Gulliver, the HSBC chief executive, said in a news release.

Well, I'm convinced!

After all, HSBC hasn't been in the news at all over the last five years.

At least not for anything resembling corruption. Amirite?

2015: Swiss Files



HSBC’s Swiss bank concealed large sums of money for people facing allegations of serious wrongdoing, including drug-running, corruption and money laundering, leaked files reveal.

Despite being legally obliged since 1998 to make special checks on high-risk customers, the bank provided accounts for clients implicated in six notorious scandals in Africa, including Kenya’s biggest corruption case, blood diamond trading and several corrupt military sales.

HSBC also held assets for bankers accused of looting funds from former Soviet states, while alleged crimes by other account holders include bribery at Malta’s state oil company, cocaine smuggling from the Dominican Republic and the doping of professional cyclists in Spain.

2016: Panama Papers



Described as "Syria's poster boy for corruption" in a January 2008 US State Department cable, Makhlouf was estimated to be worth $5bn before the outbreak of the uprising, presiding over a vast business empire and controlling some 60 percent of the Syrian economy.

...Thanks to lobbying by London-headquartered HSBC, Makhlouf was able to maintain Swiss bank accounts until May 2011 - despite existing US sanctions and growing interest around Makhlouf from financial investigators in the British Virgin Islands.

As The Guardian reported on Tuesday, leaked emails suggest that HSBC's compliance departments in Geneva and London argued against cutting ties with Makhlouf up until February 2011.

By 2014, campaigners claim, HSBC began arbitrarily closing dozens and dozens of bank accounts held by Syrian nationals living in the UK, doctors and students, refugees and activists - often with little or no explanation at all.

Spring 2017: Global Laundromat



HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds, Barclays and Coutts are among 17 banks based in the UK, or with branches here, that are facing questions over what they knew about the international scheme and why they did not turn away suspicious money transfers.

Documents seen by the Guardian show that at least $20bn appears to have been moved out of Russia during a four-year period between 2010 and 2014. The true figure could be $80bn, detectives believe.

One senior figure involved in the inquiry said the money from Russia was “obviously either stolen or with criminal origin”.

Investigators are still trying to identify some of the wealthy and politically influential Russians behind the operation, known as “the Global Laundromat”.

Last September: Forex manipulation



The U.S. Federal Reserve fined HSBC Holdings PLC (HSBA.L) $175 million on Friday for “unsafe and unsound practices” in its foreign exchange trading business, the latest in a series of fines for banks that fail to prevent market manipulation.

Last Month: Gupta



HSBC has been accused of “possible criminal complicity” in a money laundering scandal involving South Africa’s wealthy Gupta family.

Speaking in the House of Lords on Wednesday, two weeks after he first voiced concerns about UK links to the probe, Lord Hain said he had handed new evidence to the chancellor about the alleged involvement of a British bank in the “flagrant robbery” of South African taxpayers. Hain did not mention the name the bank in the Lords but did so in a letter to the Philip Hammond, in which he said the bank should be investigated over “possible criminal complicity” in corruption.

Also last month: enabling tax fraud



HSBC Private Bank, a Swiss unit of banking giant HSBC, has agreed to pay 300 million euros ($352 million) to avoid going to trial in France for enabling tax fraud, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

HSBC was accused last year of helping French clients to hide at least 1.67 billion euros from the tax authorities, according to a source close to the probe.

Three weeks ago: Selling Lehman products



HSBC Holdings Plc’s private-banking unit was fined a record HK$400 million ($51 million) over sales of structured products linked to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong.



So like I was saying, HSBC has totally cleaned up its act and is a perfectly safe, responsible, law-abiding bank now, just like the DOJ tells you.