How DOJ let HSBC off the hook

Michael Daly, Daily Beast - While the Justice Department was busy prosecuting American HSBC customers for tax evasion, it has taken no action against the bank for nearly five years...

This rank unfairness by the folks at the place called Justice was compounded three years ago after the feds caught HSBC laundering $881 million in drug cartel money and actively concealing illegal dealings with Iran and North Korea.

A money-laundering investigation as big as the bank itself ended with a deferred prosecution agreement that allowed HSBC to escape criminal charges and suffer only a fine.

This while the DOJ was jailing non-bankers by the dozen for laundering drug money, including cash from the Sinaloa cartel, which had been a prime HSBC co-conspirator.

Two men at a car dealership who took cartel cash for automobiles got serious prison time.

HSBC got a pass on helping the Sinaloa bunch acquire an airplane that was used to smuggle drugs by the ton.

DOJ aggressively prosecuted private citizens such as a New Jersey businessman who was lured into a tax scheme by HSBC and a Virginia doctor who sought to avoid paying taxes on money his deceased mother had stashed in a secret HSBC account in Switzerland.