Guardian – The reputation of Britain’s banking industry took a fresh battering when HSBC was slapped with a record $1.9bn (£1.2bn) fine by US regulators for money laundering and sanctions busting, the first arrests were made in the Libor-rigging investigation, and nationalised Northern Rock handed the taxpayer a £270m bill to compensate customers affected by a mistake in its paperwork.
The US department of justice (DoJ) detailed how HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank, allowed drug traffickers to launder billions of dollars in the US and billions more to be moved across borders to countries facing sanctions, such as Burma, Cuba and Libya.
