{"id":1362173,"date":"2022-03-07T05:24:26","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T10:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1362173"},"modified":"2022-03-07T10:26:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T15:26:14","slug":"how-big-banks-make-big-bucks-from-russian-dark-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-big-banks-make-big-bucks-from-russian-dark-money\/","title":{"rendered":"How Big Banks Make Big Bucks From Russian Dark Money"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-big-banks-make-big-bucks-from-russian-dark-money%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1362173&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/03\/Readers-Pass-Zeisloft-_How-Big-Banks-Make-Big-Bucks-From-Russian-Oligarchs_16x9.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span>Over the past two decades, American corporations have rightly <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/show\/china-the-enemy-within?\/?utm_campaign=thenemywithin&#038;utm_medium=paid&#038;utm_source=googlesearch&#038;utm_term=&#038;utm_campaign=dailywire_conversions_product_dynamic_storelaunch_na_na_all_SEARCH&#038;utm_source=adwords&#038;utm_medium=ppc&#038;hsa_acc=6411461344&#038;hsa_cam=16378553709&#038;hsa_grp=136340160440&#038;hsa_ad=583960790820&#038;hsa_src=g&#038;hsa_tgt=dsa-1664805713644&#038;hsa_kw=&#038;hsa_mt=&#038;hsa_net=adwords&#038;hsa_ver=3&#038;gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6t2k9a6t9gIVw-zjBx0UOA-UEAAYASAAEgK6zfD_BwE\"><span>earned<\/span><\/a><span> a reputation for capitulating to China \u2014 turning a blind eye to human rights atrocities committed by the Chinese government so they can benefit from the Asian superpower\u2019s emerging consumer economy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For example, Jamie Dimon \u2014 the longtime CEO of JPMorgan Chase and the world\u2019s most powerful <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ceoworld.biz\/2022\/02\/21\/meet-the-worlds-most-powerful-banker-jamie-dimon-ceo-of-jpmorgan-chase\/\"><span>banker<\/span><\/a><span> \u2014 apologized profusely after making a mild <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/jpmorgan-ceo-apologizes-after-mild-joke-about-chinese-communist-party\"><span>joke<\/span><\/a><span> about the Chinese Communist Party last year. The reason for the <\/span><i><span>mea culpa<\/span><\/i><span> was evident. Months earlier, Chinese authorities <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/jp-morgan-wins-permission-for-full-control-of-a-securities-business-in-china-11628285229\"><span>granted<\/span><\/a><span> JPMorgan Chase permission to assume full control of a securities business \u2014 the first foreign company to be offered such an opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, world governments have enacted <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/how-russia-sanctions-could-impact-american-consumers\"><span>sanctions<\/span><\/a><span> meant to cut off Russian financial institutions, restrict debt and equity for Russian corporations, and target certain Russian elites. Although the Russian economy is far less robust than China\u2019s \u2014 contributing to the global marketplace largely through energy exports \u2014 Russian oligarchs and criminals have often benefited from the American financial system\u2019s lack of discretion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Dark Money<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span>The American banking industry often finds itself downwind from Russian elites through dark money schemes \u2014 moving tainted funds without asking tough questions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>According to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.atlanticcouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Russia-Dark-Money-Printable-PDF.pdf\"><span>Atlantic Council<\/span><\/a><span>, an American think tank focused on international affairs, Russia boasts the planet\u2019s largest volume of dark money \u2014 $1 trillion \u2014 \u201cboth in absolute terms and as a percentage of its national GDP.\u201d Roughly one-quarter of the funds are controlled by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies, while \u201cthe Kremlin appears to be able to persuade dependent oligarchs to assist financially in its foreign policy undertakings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThese oligarchs hire the best lawyers, auditors, bankers, and lobbyists in the world to develop legal means to conceal and launder their funds,\u201d the Atlantic Council explains. \u201cThey thus often have greater resources than the regulators tasked with maintaining the integrity of national financial systems.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In turn, the Kremlin can use the funds in such a way that poses a credible national security threat to the United States \u2014 engaging in espionage, terrorism, and bribery, as well as pushing disinformation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In 2014, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project began covering the so-called \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.occrp.org\/en\/russianlaundromat\/\"><span>Global Laundromat<\/span><\/a><span>.\u201d According to the group, \u201cit\u2019s a complex system for laundering more than $20 billion in Russian money stolen from the government by corrupt politicians or earned through organized crime activity.\u201d Elites and criminals were able to move enormous volumes of cash out of Russia using banks in countries like Moldova and Latvia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Three years later, the OCCRP <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.occrp.org\/en\/laundromat\/the-russian-laundromat-exposed\/\"><span>determined<\/span><\/a><span> from leaked bank documents that many of the world\u2019s most powerful investment banks had received the laundered money. Citi, for example, processed payments of $37 million. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo were also implicated. Beyond American financial firms, several Western European banks with operations in the United States \u2014 including UBS, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Deutsche Bank \u2014 all received laundered funds. HSBC alone stands accused of processing $543 million in laundered funds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When pressed by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2017\/03\/24\/news\/russia-money-laundering-global-banks\/index.html\"><span>CNN<\/span><\/a><span>, most of the banks deflected. \u201cWe continually take steps to strengthen and enhance our anti-money laundering program,\u201d vowed Citi. \u201cThe Bank has systems and processes in place to identify suspicious activity and report it to the appropriate government authorities,\u201d insisted HSBC.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>More recently, the \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/jasonleopold\/fincen-files-financial-scandal-criminal-networks\"><span>FinCEN Files<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d \u2014 documents from the United States Treasury Department\u2019s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network leaked to BuzzFeed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists \u2014 revealed over 200,000 transactions between 1999 and 2017 valued at over $2 trillion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As BuzzFeed summarized, the documents \u201cexpose the hollowness of banking safeguards, and the ease with which criminals have exploited them.\u201d The banks\u2019 own employees issued warnings; yet, \u201cprofits from deadly drug wars, fortunes embezzled from developing countries, and hard-earned savings stolen in a Ponzi scheme\u201d flowed through entities like JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of New York Mellon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Among the Russian oligarchs implicated by the documents was Putin ally <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/oleg-deripaska\/?sh=6a4b3d38804c\"><span>Oleg Deripaska<\/span><\/a><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>With a net worth of $3 billion, Deripaska founded Basic Element \u2014 a Russian industrial group with interests in aluminum, energy, construction, and agriculture. Thousands of transfers <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=oleg-Deripaska\"><span>connected<\/span><\/a><span> to Deripaska and his firms were flagged as suspicious. In particular, BNY Mellon found 16 shady transactions between 2013 and 2015 that involved Mallow Capital \u2014 a subsidiary of Basic Element registered in the British Virgin Islands. According to ICIJ, BNY Mellon \u201chelped facilitate these transactions through a relationship with Moscow-based Bank Soyuz\u201d \u2014 and in 2010, Deripaska bought a controlling stake in Bank Soyuz. Deripaska, however, \u201cdenies laundering funds or committing financial crimes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/boris-rotenberg\/?sh=2562e513126a\"><span>Boris Rotenberg<\/span><\/a><span> and his older brother, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/profile\/arkady-rotenberg\/\"><span>Arkady<\/span><\/a><span>, own SMP Bank and share close ties with Putin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Worth a combined $4.3 billion, the Rotenbergs were <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.icij.org\/investigations\/fincen-files\/confidential-clients\/#client=oleg-Deripaska\"><span>linked<\/span><\/a><span> to reports of a laundering scheme that was \u201cknowingly and actively facilitated\u201d by traders at Deutsche Bank. Months before details of the Global Laundromat were made public, Deutsche had been <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2017\/01\/31\/investing\/deutsche-bank-us-fine-russia-money-laundering\/?iid=EL\"><span>hit<\/span><\/a><span> with hundreds of millions in fines \u2014 $425 million in the United States and $204 million in Britain \u2014 due to the money laundering scheme, which involved the bank\u2019s branches in New York, Moscow, and London. According to the New York State Department of Financial Services, Deutsche \u201cmissed numerous opportunities to detect, investigate and stop the scheme due to extensive compliance failures, allowing the scheme to continue for years.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Defeating Oligarchs<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span>Deripaska was sanctioned in 2018 for allegedly threatening the lives of business rivals, among other criminal activities. The Rotenberg brothers were sanctioned by the United States in 2014 after Russia invaded Crimea. And as Russian forces carry out the current invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration is unveiling another wave of sanctions against influential Russians \u2014 including \u201call of Russia\u2019s largest financial institutions and the ability of state-owned and private entities to raise capital,\u201d the Treasury Department <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/home.treasury.gov\/news\/press-releases\/jy0608\"><span>said<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>However, there are several credible reforms that can prevent Russian oligarchs from escaping sanctions through dark money schemes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For one, regulators can impose meaningful fines. According to the Atlantic Council, money laundering fines offered by American regulators \u201chave dwindled to the point that, unlike penalties for sanctions evaders, they no longer serve as a credible threat for money launderers.\u201d Meanwhile, European authorities charged significant fines for money laundering \u201conly in rare circumstances.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>For another, the Atlantic Council added that \u201clikeminded financial authorities should develop a greater joint understanding of the typologies of illicit financial movements and develop swift and more selective reporting keyed to criteria to uncover corruption.\u201d Such coordination would make financial intelligence units privy to the \u201cspeed of commerce\u201d and reduce spam from \u201cirrelevant and minor transactions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As economist Paul Krugman recently wrote for <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/02\/24\/opinion\/russia-ukraine-sanctions-offshore-accounts.html\"><span>The New York Times<\/span><\/a><span>, laundered money could be Putin\u2019s \u201cAchilles heel\u201d \u2014 but only if the West is \u201cwilling to take on its own corruption.\u201d Krugman noted that \u201ca number of influential people, both in business and in politics, are deeply financially enmeshed with Russian kleptocrats.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Unlike China, cutting off the Russian economy would not spell destruction for the American marketplace. But like China, the American ruling class has the most to lose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i><span>member<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past two decades, American corporations have rightly earned a reputation for capitulating to China \u2014 turning a blind eye to human rights atrocities committed by the Chinese government<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1362173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1362173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1362173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1362173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1362173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}