From Democracy Now;
October 27, 2011
For more about U.S. involvement in the drug wars in Mexico, we’re joined by Ed Vulliamy, author of Amexica: War Along the Borderline. He’s a writer for The Guardian and The Observer in Britain, and headed back there this week.
You can’t drive around Mexico with hundreds of billions of dollars in cash in a semi-artic truck. It has to be banked. And what I found was that it is coming into the United States, into the banking system. Now, we have to be careful here, legally. I mean, Wachovia is the bank concerned in this instance. It is in the clear, because there was a deferred prosecution in March. They were clear.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean. What was Wachovia’s involvement?
ED VULLIAMY: OK, what happened was various signals, various red flags went up regarding inconsistencies. My contact—they were coming through London, traveler’s checks, serially numbered, strangely signed, coming through, and irregularities spotted. And my contact’s name is Woods, put up the alarm. Rather than be sort of thanked for his vigilance, he was basically sort of told to shut up, originally, and then spat out, frankly.
There was a prosecution. There was a settlement in the district court of Miami. And the settlement said—and it was a deferred prosecution, which means no one goes to jail, constructively, and you have to sort of behave for a year, and if you do so, the whole thing is dropped. And we have to say, it has been dropped. Wachovia has since been bought by Wells Fargo, who have cooperated with the investigation. It’s nothing against Wells Fargo.
But what was found was that $110 million—small change—was directly connected to four drug deals in Mexico involving the Sinaloa Cartel, but that the staggering figure of $378 billion—that’s a lot of money—was insufficiently monitored. Now, we don’t know how much of that was connected to drug deals. It could be anything between naught and $378 billion. But it gives us a glimpse of the size, of the volume, the quantity of the money involved. These were coming through things called casas de cambio, holes in the wall, basically, exchange houses, not even a proper banking system. So we have a medium-sized bank, that kind of money.
Then, I thought, well, let’s set this in context. Talked to a man called Antonio Maria Costa, who’s the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. He’s not there any longer. He posits that the volumes of money coming in from Mexico, from—and obviously his speciality was Europe, Russia, you know, similar operations—laundering of vast quantities of the profits of drugs and, of course, the calamitous violence that is the scourge of Mexico, is basically propping up the banking system. It is a major pillar of the banking system.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/10/27/drug_war_profiteers_book_exposes_how
October 27, 2011
For more about U.S. involvement in the drug wars in Mexico, we’re joined by Ed Vulliamy, author of Amexica: War Along the Borderline. He’s a writer for The Guardian and The Observer in Britain, and headed back there this week.
You can’t drive around Mexico with hundreds of billions of dollars in cash in a semi-artic truck. It has to be banked. And what I found was that it is coming into the United States, into the banking system. Now, we have to be careful here, legally. I mean, Wachovia is the bank concerned in this instance. It is in the clear, because there was a deferred prosecution in March. They were clear.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean. What was Wachovia’s involvement?
ED VULLIAMY: OK, what happened was various signals, various red flags went up regarding inconsistencies. My contact—they were coming through London, traveler’s checks, serially numbered, strangely signed, coming through, and irregularities spotted. And my contact’s name is Woods, put up the alarm. Rather than be sort of thanked for his vigilance, he was basically sort of told to shut up, originally, and then spat out, frankly.
There was a prosecution. There was a settlement in the district court of Miami. And the settlement said—and it was a deferred prosecution, which means no one goes to jail, constructively, and you have to sort of behave for a year, and if you do so, the whole thing is dropped. And we have to say, it has been dropped. Wachovia has since been bought by Wells Fargo, who have cooperated with the investigation. It’s nothing against Wells Fargo.
But what was found was that $110 million—small change—was directly connected to four drug deals in Mexico involving the Sinaloa Cartel, but that the staggering figure of $378 billion—that’s a lot of money—was insufficiently monitored. Now, we don’t know how much of that was connected to drug deals. It could be anything between naught and $378 billion. But it gives us a glimpse of the size, of the volume, the quantity of the money involved. These were coming through things called casas de cambio, holes in the wall, basically, exchange houses, not even a proper banking system. So we have a medium-sized bank, that kind of money.
Then, I thought, well, let’s set this in context. Talked to a man called Antonio Maria Costa, who’s the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. He’s not there any longer. He posits that the volumes of money coming in from Mexico, from—and obviously his speciality was Europe, Russia, you know, similar operations—laundering of vast quantities of the profits of drugs and, of course, the calamitous violence that is the scourge of Mexico, is basically propping up the banking system. It is a major pillar of the banking system.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/10/27/drug_war_profiteers_book_exposes_how
