[rcarrigan87]

"Conventional financial institutions comply with anti-money laundering regulations that make it difficult for criminal organizations to use their payment infrastructure."

Yes, yes of course. Just like how HSBC physically expanded their teller windows to make it easy for Mexican drug cartels to make cash deposits.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/17/hsbc-execut...

[rayiner]

Source? It sounds like a game-of-telephone version of what's in the HSBC deferred prosecution agreement: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/legacy/2012/.... Notably, the inference of intent is completely different under your version.

> 50. The Department alleges, and HSBC Bank USA and HSBC Holdings do not contest, that, beginning in 2008, an investigation conducted by HSI’s El Dorado Task Force, in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, identified multiple HSBC Mexico accounts associated with BMPE activity. The investigation further revealed that drug traffickers were depositing hundreds of thousands of dollars in bulk U.S. currency each day into HSBC Mexico accounts. In order to efficiently move this volume of cash through the teller windows at HSBC Mexico branches, drug traffickers designed specially shaped boxes that fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows. The drug traffickers would send numerous boxes filled with cash through the teller windows for deposit into HSBC Mexico accounts. After the cash was deposited in the accounts, peso brokers then wire transferred the U.S. dollars to various exporters located in New York City and other locations throughout the United States to purchase goods for Colombian businesses. The U.S. exporters then sent the goods directly to the businesses in Colombia.

[mrb]

"Source?"

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/14/hsbc-money-...

[mistermann]

In Canada we have banking regulations related to money laundering and an oversight agency called FINTRAC. However, anyone with any knowledge in the matter will tell you that a bank will happily tell customers exactly how to structure transactions to achieve what they need without having to report to FINTRAC, and FINTRAC itself has no investigative capabilities.

That this system is entirely to keep up appearances is blatantly obvious, but such a large percentage of the population is making a killing on real estate they have less than zero interest.

[ajross]

Pretty much, because what HSBC did was illegal and they got caught. The statement you quoted wasn't intended to be a statement that "conventional institutions never cheat", but that there is a regulatory process in place to prevent that (i.e. the one that HSBC cheated around, thus the enforcement action in your link), where with bitcoin there is none.

[samfriedman]

>Just like how HSBC physically expanded their teller windows to make it easy for Mexican drug cartels to make cash deposits.

I can't seem to find any mention of this in the linked article?

[UseStrict]

OP didn't link to the right article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/14/hsbc-money-...

[rcarrigan87]

My bad, thank you!

[_e]

The bank didn't adjust the teller windows but people designed boxes to perfectly fit through the teller windows.

From a Rolling Stone article --

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."[0]

[0] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-se...

[jaclaz]

>The bank didn't adjust the teller windows but people designed boxes to perfectly fit through the teller windows.

The one thing does not exclude the other.

It is entirely possible that previous windows were too small and, after they were enlarged, in order to optimize the deposit operation some special boxes were put in use.

[DannyBee]

Possible, but that set of facts do not appear to be alleged anywhere. If this was thought to be true, it would have definitely been alleged in the prosecution agreement.

IE everything is entirely possible

[jaclaz]

I don't get it.

The Guardian published something [0]: >In some branches the boxes of cash being deposited were so big the tellers' windows had to be enlarged.

Rolling Stone published something different [1]: > ... 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."

The one doesn't exclude the other.

What is the problem?

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/14/hsbc-money-...

[1] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-se...

[mrow84]

"In some branches the boxes of cash being deposited were so big the tellers' windows had to be enlarged."

From the article reference here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14857385

[_Codemonkeyism]

Both facts also do not exclude the possibility that the moon is made of cheese. QED.

[boobsbr]

And nothing of consequence (at least of big significance) happened to HSBC.

They couldn't even implement FATCA in time, and government allowed the deadline to be pushed pushed forwards...