The next time anyone accuses Bitcoin of Money Laundering, point them here:

[cypherdoc]

And not one bankster has gone to prison.

“We accept responsibility for our past mistakes,” Gulliver said in a statement. “We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organization from the one that made those mistakes.”

Translation: "We are profoundly sorry; for having been caught".

"The decision not to prosecute HSBC was a decision of the Justice Department and was influenced by factors including the impact of the probe on the company’s employees and the potential economic effect, Breuer said."

Translation:  "Keep it up.  There will be no repercussions".

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-12/hsbc-mexican-branches-said-to-be-traffickers-favorites.html

[1714182689]

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[kokojie]

Nice one! Though I think it's more logical to compare Bitcoin with a currency, for example "accusing Bitcoin of money laundering, is like accusing USD of money laundering". It wouldn't make sense.

[creativex]

It makes sense for the masses of masses that don't have a clue what a BTC is. All that sticks is "bitcoins are for gangstahs"

[knight22]

Bankers, gangsters, is there a difference?

Let me answer this:

NO

[BoardGameCoin]

People, always conflating... =P

[MPOE-PR]

Nice find. And yes, Bitcoin being better than the banking system it should have more license than the banking system. Thus, anyone complaining of BTC money laundering should first compile a few trillion dollars' worth of solid evidence or else stfu.

[cypherdoc]

Thus, anyone complaining of BTC money laundering should first compile a few trillion dollars' worth of solid evidence or else stfu.

+1 lol!  oh, the truth hurts. 

[bitfreak!]

HSBC, the British banking giant, will pay $1.9 billion to settle a money-laundering probe by federal and state authorities in the United States, a law enforcement official said Monday.

source

"The decision not to prosecute HSBC was a decision of the Justice Department and was influenced by ... $1.9B, Breuer didn't say."

[niko]

Bankers, gangsters, is there a difference?

Yes. Some gangsters end up in prisons.  If I rob a granny in the street and get caught, I'll probably serve time. If I take her life savings and kick her out in the street, I get to spend all the money, and move on. A person representing the company I worked for would state how "we deeply regret" - that is all.

[Shotgun_WooWoo]

Too much negativity associated with bitcoin, at least from my perspective.  For all we know, the blocks we solve could come from a bad source or help 'negative' computations.

Weird...

[MPOE-PR]

If you've ever been arrested on a drug charge, if you've ever spent even a day in jail for having a stem of marijuana in your pocket or "drug paraphernalia" in your gym bag, Assistant Attorney General and longtime Bill Clinton pal Lanny Breuer has a message for you: Bite me.

Breuer this week signed off on a settlement deal with the British banking giant HSBC that is the ultimate insult to every ordinary person who's ever had his life altered by a narcotics charge. Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a "record" financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.

The banks' laundering transactions were so brazen that the NSA probably could have spotted them from space. Breuer 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."

This bears repeating: in order to more efficiently move as much illegal money as possible into the "legitimate" banking institution HSBC, drug dealers specifically designed boxes to fit through the bank's teller windows. Tony Montana's henchmen marching dufflebags of cash into the fictional "American City Bank" in Miami was actually more subtle than what the cartels were doing when they washed their cash through one of Britain's most storied financial institutions.



Though this was not stated explicitly, the government's rationale in not pursuing criminal prosecutions against the bank was apparently rooted in concerns that putting executives from a "systemically important institution" in jail for drug laundering would threaten the stability of the financial system. The New York Times put it this way:

Federal and state authorities have chosen not to indict HSBC, the London-based bank, on charges of vast and prolonged money laundering, for fear that criminal prosecution would topple the bank and, in the process, endanger the financial system.

Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213

Plain and simple, Bitcoin therefore has complete immunity from any money laundering charge in the US. This case is precedent.

[rebuilder]

Too much negativity associated with bitcoin, at least from my perspective.  For all we know, the blocks we solve could come from a bad source or help 'negative' computations.

Weird...

You wouldn't say that if you had done your research.

[Herodes]

It just goes to prove that everything is about money in this world.

Scam 10K, go to jail, scam 100 billions, get a slap on the wrist.

I'll just put this here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100747.msg1397760#msg1397760

[FreeMoney]

I'm just going to accuse them right back. I'll accuse them of Money Whistling. Then we can have a ridiculous conversation about an ill-defined and made up thing, since that's obviously what they wanted. Of course, I'll have an edge since I'm a Money Whistling expert and they've probably not even heard of it before, what amateurs.

[Herodes]

This thread should become a sticky, showing how worthless the argument about rejecting to work with bitcoin businesses because of fears of 'money laundering' really is.

[FreeMoney]

Too much negativity associated with bitcoin, at least from my perspective.  For all we know, the blocks we solve could come from a bad source or help 'negative' computations.

Weird...

IBM helped Nazis.. their tech probably lives on in your hardware and therefore the blockchain, so... be careful, don't catch Nazism.

[Boussac]

On a side note, as a result of the "satisfactory" performance of HSBC (thanks to some of its Mexican and Colombian customers), The CEO, Stuart Gulliver, "earned" a compensation in excess of 11 million dollars in 2011.

When you think that a Nobel Prize winner gets, only once,  1 million dollar for a lifetime of scientific achievements, you realize how lucky we are to have such "brains" as Gulliver managing the banks (i.e counting beans).

[fellowtraveler]

What is this "money laundering" crime of which you speak?

I can find nothing about it in the Law of Moses.

[marcus_of_augustus]

There is a much greater issue here that also points heavily towards a possible long term success for bitcoin ... "too big to prosecute"

The banks are so vulnerable and weak (due to the unmasking of their confidence scams of fiat money and fractional reserve banking) that the State dare not pursue them for ANY crimes since the whole edifice may collapse around them ... who cares about money laundering when the whole system may lock up in an instant?

They will able to run amok without fear as long as this situation persists. The prosecutors themselves are now openly saying this is the case (others wiser have known since 1998 LTCM affair it was so, moral hazard).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9743839/Banks-are-too-big-to-prosecute-says-FSAs-Andrew-Bailey.html

The largest banks have become too big to prosecute because of the impact criminal charges would have on confidence in them, Britain’s most senior bank regulator has admitted.

[Herodes]

I don't quite understand this.

Now, it's out in the open that banks has assisted in 'money laundering', 'tax evation' and a a lot of other types of criminal activities. So, that should be on public record, and anyone should be able to know about this. Now, is the point that if they have some executives go to jail, then the entire bank will collapse, and may cause collapse in the entire financial system ? That doesn'ẗ make any sense whatsoever. Let's imagine that a bank has 10000 employes, and let's say that 5% of these are engaged in criminal acts, that means 500. This is quite the substantional number, but please don't make me believe that putting all of these to jail, and substituting them with someone else, that we believe to be better banktsters, would cause a collapse in the financial system ?

And what would be the difference in the public eye of fines or having 50 banksters going to jail for a couple of years ? I don't think the public would care much either way..

People have a very short memory for these kinds of things, and I think the fear that's often displayed is unwarranted for.

At the same time we need to ask ourselves the question, is it the government that decides how things are run, or is it the banks ?

I think the top executives should be put in jail, and other people involved should simply lose their job, perhaps get fined or jailed, depending on the seriousness of their crimes.

Now, when we see that not only does the banks get away with it (apart from paying a fine), they even give bonuses to their top executives involved in the very same criminal activity.


Now, should we not just prosectute those banksters without fearing that 'the system' would break down ? If it breaks down, then it breaks down, and what is their fear then, that people will revolt when their savings vanishes?


Do they not see, that this only spurs contempt in the general public? Perhaps most people are too dumb to see what's going on ?

It reminds me a bit about Enron, huge failures, yet execs gets a lot of bonuses:
http://www.forbes.com/2001/12/05/1205enron.html

The only logical conclusion is that everything is owned by the big capital, and that big capital rules everything and is in fact above the law.

[cypherdoc]

this man alone put over a thousand banksters in jail back in the 1980's:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_K._Black

he, along with Janet Tavakoli, Simon Johnson, Joseph Stiglitz and a few others unfortunately can't stop the fraud and control from occurring.  Gresham's Law is deeply entrenched in the leadership arena of this country.  the bad have driven out the good.  

not throwing these guys in prison for fear of a loss of confidence in the banking system is just a diversion and excuse.  it would actually do the opposite.

this is why Bitcoin's future is so bright.  your only chance of survival is getting into a system that cannot be manipulated.

[AfricanHunter]

And not one bankster has gone to prison.

“We accept responsibility for our past mistakes,” Gulliver said in a statement. “We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organization from the one that made those mistakes.”

Translation: "We are profoundly sorry; for having been caught".

"The decision not to prosecute HSBC was a decision of the Justice Department and was influenced by factors including the impact of the probe on the company’s employees and the potential economic effect, Breuer said."

Translation:  "Keep it up.  There will be no repercussions".

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-12/hsbc-mexican-branches-said-to-be-traffickers-favorites.html

Saying that isn't really a logical argument on bitcoin being used to launder money. You are basically saying, well they also launder money which doesn't change the fact that btc can be used to clean dirty fiat. But any medium of exchange can be used to launder funds.

Don't get me wrong, not saying it should negatively affect bitcoin as currency but argument wouldn't fly on anyone with a brain

[MPOE-PR]

Saying that isn't really a logical argument on bitcoin being used to launder money. You are basically saying, well they also launder money which doesn't change the fact that btc can be used to clean dirty fiat. But any medium of exchange can be used to launder funds.

Don't get me wrong, not saying it should negatively affect bitcoin as currency but argument wouldn't fly on anyone with a brain

Try this one on your brain for size:

Dude with a hat goes up to other dude with a hat.
"Dude! You're under arrest!"
"Why ?"
"You're wearing a hat!"
"Get bent."

Money laundering can either be good or bad. It can't be good when the gov't does it but bad when some random party not in the old boys' club does it. Anyone with half a brain can see that.

[goodbc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI 

[bitfreak!]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI 

lol french fried felon. That is some classic shit. One of the funniest George Carlin pieces I've seen. Especially relevant to this thread. Nice share.

[Anon136]

Bankers, gangsters, is there a difference?

Gangsters have a pretty fucked up code of honor but the point is they have a code of honor. banksters on the other hand...

[BkkCoins]

And on the BBC today - UBS now fined $1.5B.
Wow. How much have banks paid in fines this week?
Almost $4 B... I'd say it's getting kind of expensive to be a Bankster but we all know this just means they raise fees and beg the govt for more funny money.

[cypherdoc]

And on the BBC today - UBS now fined $1.5B.
Wow. How much have banks paid in fines this week?
Almost $4 B... I'd say it's getting kind of expensive to be a Bankster but we all know this just means they raise fees and beg the govt for more funny money.

When will the nightmare stop?   It's almost like it's become expected behavior that's just par for the course.   Scary situation.

Nothing like this to focus ones mind.

[Desolator]

Criminals will always go to the easiest, safest method for money laundering.  If bitcoin or Mexican HSBC is the easiest, that's what they'll use.  Oh well.  Stop the crime they got the money from in the first place.

The big difference with bitcoin is it takes the BTC is the next version of the client will have a button that takes 0.005BTC and shoves it directly up the HSBC executives' asses.  That's figuratively but really, it just takes all their power away to do stupid shit like this and control money and control politics and control whole countries and control big businesses, etc.