[Peace-discuss] Latest trillions-dollar money laundering exposé is not chiefly Russian but not framed fairly by establishment media

[J.B. Nicholson]

https://on.rt.com/aqu8 -- "US suspects $1.3 TRILLION in dirty money may have been 
laundered through Deutsche Bank over two decades"

> Germany’s largest lender, Deutsche Bank, is reportedly suspected by the US of
> facilitating more than half of the $2 trillion of suspicious transactions that
> were flagged by the US government between 1999 and 2017.
> 
> According to broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), some $1.3 trillion of $2 trillion in
> leaked transactions that occurred between 1999 and 2017 and were flagged as
> suspicious passed through Deutsche Bank. DW cited documents obtained by BuzzFeed
> News and shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative
> Journalists.
> 
> The documents revealed that five major banks (Bank of New York Mellon, Deutsche
> Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan and Standard Chartered) processed trillions of dollars of
> transactions identified as suspicious.
> 
> The activity reports that banks and other financial institutions filed with the US
> Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, showed
> that the megabanks continued to profit from powerful and dangerous players even
> after US authorities fined the financial institutions for earlier failures to stem
> flows of dirty money.

https://on.rt.com/aqs0 -- "JPMorgan & top global banks moved trillions in dirty money 
for oligarchs & criminal networks - ICIJ report"

> Five major banks (Bank of New York Mellon, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan and 
> Standard Chartered) processed trillions of dollars of transactions identified as 
> suspicious, a new ICIJ report reveals.
> 
> The International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has released[1]
> the results of an investigation based on more than 2,100 so-called suspicious
> activity reports (SARs) filed by banks and financial institutions with the US
> Department of Treasury’s Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) between 1999
> and 2017. The SARs were obtained by Buzzfeed News and shared with the ICIJ.
> 
> According to the investigative organization, the megabanks continued to profit 
> from powerful and dangerous players even after US authorities fined the financial 
> institutions for earlier failures to stem flows of dirty money.
> 
> The documents reveal that the US-based JPMorgan moved money for people and 
> companies tied to the massive looting of public funds in Malaysia, Ukraine and 
> Venezuela. The ICIJ reports that tainted transactions continued to surge through 
> accounts at JPMorgan despite the bank’s promises to improve its money laundering 
> controls as part of settlements it reached with US authorities in 2011, 2013 and 
> 2014.

[1] 
https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/global-banks-defy-u-s-crackdowns-by-serving-oligarchs-criminals-and-terrorists/

Related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byp3Z6DQyWQ -- "Leaked docs reveal 
role of banks in vast money laundering scheme"

Democracy Now's headline on this followed a pro-Russiagate pattern by bringing up a 
link to associates to either Putin or Trump:

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/9/21/headlines/leaked_docs_show_major_banks_helped_criminals_launder_billions_of_dollars
> A huge trove of leaked documents reveals how global banking giants helped to
> launder vast sums of money for drug traffickers, Russian oligarchs, weapons
> dealers and criminal networks around the world. BuzzFeed News obtained more than
> 2,100 suspicious activity reports filed by banks with the U.S. Treasury’s
> Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, accounting for some $2 trillion
> in suspicious transactions.
> 
> Among the new revelations: HSBC laundered over $880 million for Latin American
> drug cartels, Barclays helped Vladimir Putin’s associates avoid financial
> sanctions on Russian oligarchs, and JPMorgan Chase helped Donald Trump’s former
> campaign chairman Paul Manafort move millions of dollars between shell companies —
> even as Manafort faced charges of money laundering and corruption.

I'm not surprised by the establishment media coverage of this I've seen so far. As 
the video report above says, it is pitched as an innumerate Russian assault. Whether 
measured by the numbers of Russian businesses implicated or the amount of money 
running through Russian individuals & businesses, this money laundering scheme is 
clearly not chiefly or fairly described as a Russian problem. One could pitch this as 
a UK problem (as there are lots of big UK businesses involved, lots of money running 
through UK businesses) or an American problem not particularly tied chiefly to Trump 
(no matter how distant any link is).

The point ought to be to show the audience what is representative of what is in the 
documents. DN is an exemplar of establishment media in reaching for a Trump and Putin 
connection which isn't clearly tied either of them or representative of the money 
flows as a whole.

-J