Big Banks Are Knee-Deep in the Dirty Money-Laundering Business
http://www.alternet.org/investigations/big-banks-are-knee-deep-dirty-money-laundering-business
Money-laundering issues at U.S. and UK financial firms shed light on role of rich nations and elite banks in the offshore world.
In the summer of 2009, Jennifer Sharkey was moving in select company. As a Manhattan-based vice president at JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Private Wealth Management group, she juggled relationships with 75 "high net worth" clients with assets totaling more than half a billion dollars.
Things changed for her, she claims, after she raised doubts about a "suspect" foreign client who had millions stashed in various accounts at the bank.
The client was making questionable cash transfers and concealing who actually owned certain accounts, according to a lawsuit Sharkey is pursuing in federal court in Manhattan. She also found evidence, her suit claims, that the client had falsified financial statements for one of his companies and that he'd been involved in the "unexplained disappearance" of millions of dollars in merchandise in another venture.