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HSBC: Flagship Bank Of Britain’s Dope, Inc
By Executive Intelligence Review China, Published by Lyndon LaRouche.
It should come as no surprise that British banking giant HSBC was caught laundering money for drug cartels and terrorist groups. HSBC, as we shall show, is the kingpin bank of the global drug trade, a bank which, since its founding in 1865, has been devoted to financing drug crops and laundering the proceeds. HSBC is, in fact, one of the key controlling institutions of the global illicit drug cartel we call Dope, Inc.
If
you think that is an outlandish claim, consider the fact that EIR,
through its book Dope, Inc., and in its affilicated War on Drugs
magazine, published in the early 1980s by the National Anti-Drug
Coalition, have made this charge for over 30 years, and have never been
sued or challenged by the bank.
For
years, when banks have been caught laundering drug money, they have
claimed that they did not know, that they were but victims of sneaky
drug dealers and a few corrupt employees. Nothing could be further from
the truth. The truth is that a considerable portion of the global
banking system is explicitly dedicated to handling the enormous volume
of cash produced daily by dope traffickers. This banking apparatus is
essential to the functioning of Dope, Inc.—without it, the drug cartels
would quickly choke on their own cash.
Contrary
to popular opinion, it is not “demand” from the world’s population
which creates the mind destroying drug trade. Rather, it is the world
financial oligarchy, looking for massive profits and the destruction of
the minds of the population it is determined to dominate, which
organized the drug trade. The case of HSBC underscores that point. The
banks—not all of them, but most of the big international ones—are an
integral part of Dope, Inc. Serving as the central bank of this global
apparatus, is HSBC.
The Bank of Opium
HSBC was founded in Hong Kong in 1865 as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Company by a consortium of British opium, silk, and tea-trading companies which themselves were the spawn of the notorious British East India Company. Leading members of the consortium included Jardine Matheson, Dent & Company, David Sassoon & Company, James Innes, and Boston’s Russell & Company. Also supporting the new bank was the Peninsular and Orient Steam Navigation Company, which itself has a sordid history in the dope business.
The
opium trade began in the early 1700s as an official monopoly of the
British East India Company, which conquered India, and ran it on behalf
of the British Crown and the financiers operating through the City of
London. Indian-grown opium became a key component in the trade for tea
and silk in China. The East India Company had a thriving business
selling British textiles and other manufactured products in India, and
selling Chinese silk and tea in Britain. But the Company ran into
problems with the opium end of the trade. The influx of opium caused
major problems for China, and led the Emperor to issue an edict in 1729
prohibiting opium consumption. Then, in 1757, the Emperor restricted all
foreigners and foreign vessels to a trading area in the port city of
Canton. A stronger edict in 1799 prohibited the importation and use of
opium under penalty of death.
None
of this stopped the British from continuing to flood China with opium,
creating millions of addicts, but it did cause the East India Company to
protect its tea and silk trade by shifting its Chinese opium operations
to nominally independent drug runners who bought opium legally from the
East India Company in Calcutta, and smuggled it into China. The most
prominent of these drug-running firms was Jardine Matheson & Co. It
was founded in 1832 by two Scotsmen, William Jardine and James
Matheson. Jardine had been a ship’s surgeon with the East India
Company, while Matheson was the son of a Scottish baronet. The firm
today is controlled by the Keswick family. In 1839, the Chinese Emperor
launched an anti-opium offensive, which included the confiscation of all
opium stocks in the hands of Chinese and foreign merchants. The
merchants put up a fight, but were ultimately forced to concede, turning
in their opium stocks after being indemnified against losses by British
officials.
In
response, however, the British launched a propaganda campaign against
China, accusing it of violating Britain’s right to “free trade.” Britain
sent its fleet to China, to force the Chinese to capitulate to the
opium trade. The action, known as the First Opium War, resulted in the
Treaty of Nanking in 1842, under which China not only capitulated to the
opium trade, but also agreed to pay reparations to the opium runners
and gave the British control of the island of Hong Kong. However, the
treaty did not specifically legalize opium, so the British launched a
second Opium War, which resulted in the 1856 Treaty of Tientsin, which
legitimized the opium trade and opened China up to foreigners even more.
As
the opium and other trade with China expanded, Britain’s new territory
of Hong Kong became a major imperial commercial center. The opium
dealers gathered together to form a bank, the Hongkong and Shanghai
Bank, as the financial flagship of the British opium trade. Over time,
the bank—now known as HSBC—would extend its reach into the drug fields
of the Middle East and Ibero-America, as befitting its role as the
financial kingpin of Dope, Inc.
Invading America
In 1978, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, commonly known as the Hong- Shang, announced its intention to move into the U.S. with the purchase of Marine Midland Bank of Buffalo, New York. The U.S. dope trade had expanded significantly over the past decade, and the British were determined to grow it even further.
The
move touched off a major political fight, which we describe in the
accompanying article on the LaRouche movement’s battle to destroy Dope,
Inc. Ultimately, however, HongShang succeeded in getting a national
charter. In July 1979, the Lehman Brothers partner who chaired Marine
Midland moved to convert the bank to a national charter. Despite
Comptroller of the Currency rules which stated specifically that a bank
may not change its charter merely to circumvent state regulation—and
over the expressed opposition of the State of New York—the charter
change was approved, clearing the world’s most notorious dope bank to
take over a top-rank American bank.
HSBC
extended its tentacles into America with the establishment in 1995 of a
joint venture in California with Wells Fargo, the Wells Fargo HSBC
Trade Bank; the same Wells Fargo, we should add, which took over
Wachovia after that bank’s offices in Miami were raided by Federal law
enforcement officials after it was caught laundering large amounts of
dope money. Marine Midland also expanded, buying a large thrift
institution.
HSBC
took a another significant step in 1999, with the purchase of Republic
New York Corp., and its Republic National Bank. Republic was founded and
controlled by Edmond Safra. Republic had a large gold bullion
operation, and also a large “bulk cash” business which was featured in a
1996 exposé in New York magazine, detailing how Republic was sending
hundreds of millions of dollars a week in $100 bills to Russia to
finance the expansion of the Russian mob.
Today,
HSBC’s U.S. arm, HSBC North America Holdings, is the ninth-largest bank
holding company in the country, with over $340 billion in assets. It is
the sixth-largest U.S. derivatives bank, with over $4.4 trillion in
bets outstanding.
Global Criminal Menace
Thanks mostly to its thriving dope business, HSBC has become one the biggest banks in the world. Among its leading acquisitions internationally: It took over the Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China, and the British Bank of the Middle East in 1959; and in 1992, it completed a slow takeover of England’s Midland Bank. In 1981, it made a bid for the flagship of the Inter-Alpha Group, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which was blocked by the British Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
In
1997, it made a major expansion into Ibero-America, buying parts or all
of banks in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, and Chile, and founding a new bank
in Brazil.
From the Far East to the Middle East to Ibero-America, everywhere the drug trade is flourishing, you will find HSBC. It may not handle the dope, but it does handle the money, making sure that the “citizens above suspicion” who run Dope, Inc. from places such as the City of London get their cut of the proceeds. Now HSBC has been caught red-handed laundering money in the U.S. It’s time we set an example and revoke its charter to do business here. This is a bank which has abused us, assaulted our people, and violated the law with abandon. Revoke its charter and shut it down. Now.
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Money Laundering For Drug Cartels
Max Keiser: HSBC
Too Big To Jail
Video
In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert look at HSBC being fined rather than criminally charged in order to avoid destabilizing the system, while JP Morgan and others are being sued for about a trillion in bad mortgages investors were duped into buying. They also look at "1001" under which bankers who lied to the federal housing authorities could be criminally tried for lying to a federal official. In the second half, Max Keiser talks to Kyra Maya Phillips of MisfitEconomy.com about democracy aboard pirate ships of the 18th century on which No Plunder, No Pay was the name of the game and innovation happened on the fringe. Max proposes banksters walk the plank in a specially built platform in Trafalgar Square.
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Its GETS BETTER...............!!!!!!!
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Matt Taibbi: How Did
HSBC Executives Avoid Jail?
The banking giant HSBC has escaped indictment for laundering
billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and groups
linked to al-Qaeda
Democracy Now!
Despite evidence of wrongdoing, the U.S. Department of
Justice has allowed the bank to avoid prosecution and pay a
$1.9 billion fine. No top HSBC officials will face charges
Taibbi says. "Here we have a bank that laundered $800
million of drug money, and they can’t find a way to put
anybody in jail for that. That sends an incredible message,
not just to the financial sector but to everybody. It’s an
obvious, clear double standard, where one set of people gets
to break the rules as much as they want and another set of
people can’t break any rules at all without going to jail."
JUAN
GONZÁLEZ: Well, let’s go
on to HSBC. The banking giant
has escaped indictment for laundering billions of
dollars for Mexican drug cartels and groups linked to
al-Qaeda. The bank reportedly supplied a billion dollars
to a firm whose founder had ties to al-Qaeda and shipped
billions in cash from Mexico to the United States
despite warnings the money was coming from drug cartels.
Earlier this year, a Senate investigation concluded that
HSBC provided a, quote,
"gateway for terrorists to gain access to U.S. dollars
and the U.S. financial system."
