How America Became the Money Laundering Capital of the World | The New Republic
▻https://newrepublic.com/article/162321/america-money-laundering-capital-fincen
[...] regulatory efforts to clamp down on lawyers who have facilitated some dirty money real estate transactions may be tough to pull off given the recent positions of the American Bar Association, which lobbied against early versions of the new law.
“The ABA will never allow its members to be required to have AML [anti–money laundering] programs, or be required to file suspicious activity reports,” Jim Richards, the former Wells Fargo official, told me. Further, the “ABA’s position is a major reason the U.S remains noncompliant” with anti–money laundering positions promulgated by the top global standard-setting body known as the Financial Action Task Force, “hurting efforts to attack money laundering worldwide,” Richards added.
Highlighting another weakness in curbing bank money laundering, Richards told me that if regulators can’t go after powerful bank officials, they will have a hard time deterring banks that can afford to bleed money. Richards said that recent history has shown that fines have had, at best, limited success. “The same group of large financial institutions have been paying hundred-million-dollar-plus fines for 15 to 20 years, with no end in sight.”
He added, “Let’s try something different: Instead of having bank shareholders pay fines for the misdeeds of bankers, hold bank directors and CEOs personally responsible for the misdeeds of their bankers. The threat of a prison sentence is much more persuasive than the threat of a large money penalty. You start throwing bank directors and CEOs in jail, and all of a sudden bank directors and CEOs see that they have a real problem that can’t be fixed with shareholders’ money. Then you’ll start to see reform.”
#blanchiment #états-unis #complicité #banques #barreau #justice