Wells Fargo as the biggest US bank laundered billions from Mexican murderous drug cartels

By Michael Webster: Syndicated Investigative reporter, Michael Webster. Sept 5,2017 at 8:00 AM PDT

Wells Fargo created 3.5M fake accounts the biggest bank in the world said that it had uncovered 67% more potentially fake accounts than it initially estimated, capping an investigation into a scandal that has engulfed the bank since last year. Wells Fargo said that an independent review had identified 3.5 million potentially unauthorized accounts that were opened between 2009 and 2016. The new figure is a marked increase from its initial 2.1 million account estimate. In July, Wells Fargo received preliminary approval for a $142 million class action settlement related to the scandal.

The 3.5 million fake account scandal is just the last of a long trail of major illegal activities.  

Wachovia Bank traded in drug money involving billons of American dollars and was eventually acquired by Wells Fargo during the 2008 crash, as a result Wells Fargo became a beneficiary of $25bn in taxpayer’s money.

Criminal charges were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual or officer, but was settled out of court and further investigations ceased. In March 2010, according to US district court records in Miami Florida Wachovia settled to date the biggest bank fraud ever perpetrated on the American people that action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court. Wachovia paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship tons of cocaine. More shocking, and more important, the bank was sanctioned for failing to apply the proper anti-laundering laws which transferred all most 400 Billion in American dollars. A sum equivalent to most countries GMP. Much of this cash was put into U.S. dollar accounts from so-called casas de cambio (CDCs) in Mexico, currency exchange houses with which the bank did business.

Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor in the case said "Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations."

Wells Fargo immediately started picking up the slack and made billions more in illicit cash.  

As the vicious violence from the Mexican Drug Cartels (MDC’s) spread, billions of dollars of cartel cash began to find its way into the worldwide drug business and financial system through Wells Fargo Bank.

According to the UN, proceeds pouring in from the global drug trade ultimately helped keep Wells Fargo  afloat as “the only liquid investment capital” available to them . But Wells Fargo didn't just profit from laundering money for major drug cartels -- it also profited, and continues to profit, at the other end of the drug war as a major investor in the prison-industrial complex, specifically with heavy investments in the GEO Group, the second largest private prison company in the United States.

As the largest bank in the world, Wells Fargo is deeply connected with some of the most powerful U.S. and international institutions to ensure that no matter how many crimes it commits -- fraud, illegal foreclosures, money laundering, you name it -- it will continue to consolidate markets, grow larger and presumably get away with its criminal activities for relatively small fines.

For a mega-money laundering, drug war profiteering, prison-industry enlarging global bank reach like Wells Fargo. The evidence is obvious: it helps to have connections with high level politicians, affiliations with individuals and institutions that make up the U.S. and increasingly the international power elite.  Wells Fargo is too big to fail, too big to jail, too criminal to control -- and too timorous to tolerate. Wells Fargo is profiting billions of dollars at the expense of all Americans.