Panama fingered in US  Treasury laundering  revelations

Buzzfeed News has expanded coverage of tthe FinCEN Files investigation —based, in part, on thousands of secret US Treasury Department documents and in revelations of the activities of HSBC  points another finger at Panama.

After an earlier massive fine imposed on HSBC and a monitoring agreement “The inside tale of what happened at HSBC, told here for the first time, underscores how toothless deferred prosecution agreements really are” says Buzzfeed.

“The records show that the bank continued to do business with companies that its own employees raised red flags about.

“Vida Panamá, owned by Panama’s powerful Waked family, used the bank to exchange $292 million in suspicious transactions before the Treasury Department declared it a money-laundering organization that washed funds for narco kingpins. An attorney for the family, Yasser Williams, told BuzzFeed News the business was legitimate, and the Wakeds plan to fight Treasury’s designation.

A Turkish financial consultant made 124 suspicious transactions in 2015 and 2016, including a wire transfer to a California electronics company accused by the Justice Department of laundering cash for the Norte del Valle drug cartel. The California company did not respond to a detailed message.

And the bank flouted Treasury Department guidelines by doing business with financial institutions in Transnistria, a breakaway republic in Moldova known as a haven for financial crime.