Saturday, January 10, 2009

Are Western Banks Breaking Sanctions


Lloyds Pays $350M To US In Sanctions Case -- Miami Herald/AP

WASHINGTON -- Lloyds TSB Bank PLC has agreed to forfeit $350 million for helping customers skirt U.S. sanctions on business transactions with Sudan, Iran and Libya.

The bank, headquartered in London, admitted responsibility for criminal conduct under a deferred prosecution deal filed Friday in federal court in Washington.

In announcing the settlement, the Justice Department said that as early as 1995, Lloyds falsified wire transfers involving countries or individuals on U.S. sanctions list.

The bank was accused of deliberately removing customer information - a process Lloyds employees referred to as "stripping" - so that wire transfers would pass undetected through filters at U.S. financial institutions.

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My Comment: This is one bank .... it does not take too much to imagine that other banks are doing the same thing.

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