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Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

theguardian.com

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Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#21

Post by vmception »

strogonoff wrote: post #12
vmception wrote: post #6

Money, liquidity, and fungibility is a public good, it has been (and still is) a waste of public and private resources to attempt to alter that reality. Although this isn't a popular or public opinion by the public or banks or politicians, it is also the reality for banks and their host governments, and all lip service otherwise is either a lie for data collection or simply fails spectacularly at actually preventing…

I believe KYC is a very good idea fundamentally, and I wish more banks took it seriously with their top customers as well (or more) as with the rest. It’s not in banks’ interests, of course. And I disagree that terrorism is cheap. Preparation for 9/11 allegedly cost up to $500K. Bojinka plot used fair amount of financing as well. Maybe those couldn’t be caught via financial controls and KYC, or maybe they could.

Correct, I consider that cheap when HSBC subsequently laundered billions of dollars over the following decade after the PATRIOT Act. The same PATRIOT Act that wouldnt have flagged wire transfers the terrorists used even if it existed before 9/11. It's just an opportunistic data collection program on everyone else.

With billions slipping through from any random branch manager at any bank anywhere, how many 9/11s is that? Any time, for any reason, funding secured.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#23

Post by barry-cotter »

> This article is a bit difficult to understand; there's a mixture of actual money laundering with the non-crime of "a really bad person has a bank account". There's a difficult and IMO increasingly urgent question here, of whether the banking system is a utility or something else. There's no whistleblowers from the electricity company, even though it literally kept the lights on for murderers and traffickers. Nobody gets sentenced to "and you are not allowed a bank account for the rest of your life". If a criminal hasn't had their whole wealth confiscated as proceeds of crime by the courts, is the convention now that nonetheless they should be deprived of the ability to use them? Maybe. I really don't know the answer in some hard cases. But it feels like if the banking system is going to be part of the law enforcement system, that needs to be established through actual laws passed through the parliament. As far as I can see there are some charges of actual complicity in the article, but it's hard to separate them from "this bad person was a client". https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/149544584780670566...

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#24

Post by sdze »

joseloyaio wrote: post #22

Switzerland is all about Neutrality What's the point of neutrality if you are gonna ignore it when it's convenient. There's a reason Switzerland held Jewish and Nazi gold alike.

This country should be heavily sanctioned by the international community. They actively pull in (tax) fraudsters and criminals.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#25

Post by sschueller »

sdoering wrote: post #15
sschueller wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they can spend a warping 770 Billion a year on defense. How do you even sell that with so many people struggling in the US?

Being a cynic I would say you don't sell it (except maybe with the Russian situation) but just do it. Who should stop the US government from going forward with this? I know, I am a cynic. But I once was (young and naive) a member of the German social democrat party. I visited the state convention for their youth members. It was a perfect politics simulacrum. With decisions being made, backroom deals (because we don't…

Yes it's discusting how modern politics operate not in the interest of the population but in their own and their enablers (donors and powerful).

The most obsurd is when soldiers are sent to fire weapons where each bullet costs more than they make in a year at another group of people that have even less for political reasons.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#26

Post by social_quotient »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #11

I commend the bravery of the leaker/whistleblower and hope they can maintain their personal safety. It's time to expose the evil amongst the elite-- all the elite--once and for all.

Should it be limited to just elite or everyone all the way down? Not trolling you as it might sound but how do you draw lines between elite and not elite.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#27

Post by rich_sasha »

barry-cotter wrote: post #23

> This article is a bit difficult to understand; there's a mixture of actual money laundering with the non-crime of "a really bad person has a bank account". There's a difficult and IMO increasingly urgent question here, of whether the banking system is a utility or something else. There's no whistleblowers from the electricity company, even though it literally kept the lights on for murderers and traffickers. Nobody…

Whilst I agree with everything you say (quote?), you’re not meant to bank with unexplained or unsavoury sources of funds. Eg storing money you stole from your murdered is not better than money laundering. Iirc some of the CS clients fell into this category and the bank was very keen to not ask questions.

I’m pretty sure there is a bank somewhere in the Alps where Kim Jong Un has a little bank account under an appropriately obfuscated identity. Probably more than one. Whoever opened it from the bank’s side probably knew something is up but chose not to ask questions. And they are providing banking access to North Korea’s dictator.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#28

Post by ls15 »

umvi wrote: post #5

People on HN often dismiss the "nothing to hide" argument as invalid when it comes to strong privacy rights, but... the fact remains that those who very much want to hide their illegal activities and ill-gotten gains are first in line to the banks/services with the strongest privacy guarantees (swiss banks, cryptocurrencies, e2e chat apps, etc). It's a hard problem and I don't think saying "oh well, having human traf…

The worst apples will always find a way to protect their privacy, while the innocent majority of people is having their privacy invaded against their best interests.

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#29

Post by kragen »

Another day, another answer to "what is Bitcoin good for?"

Earlier today we were discussing the false-positive rate of Google Drive's copyright-scanning approach: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30404587. What do you suppose the leaker's false-positive rate on "fraudsters and corrupt politicians" is?

The article does admit this:

> It is not illegal to have a Swiss account and the leak also contained data of legitimate clients who had done nothing wrong.

Moreover, almost all of the examples in the article seem to be cases of "ex-con nevertheless is able to open bank account". Isn't that a good thing? Do we want a criminal conviction to implicitly include a lifetime of exclusion from the financial system?

The sole exception seems to be "an allegedly fraudulent investment in London property that is at the centre of an ongoing criminal trial of several defendants, including a cardinal," which is to say, the accountholder may turn out to be innocent. This suggests that the whistleblower's false-positive rate was upwards of 99%.

So, if you've done nothing wrong but you don't want your banking details to be leaked for journalists in hostile countries to comb through looking for something they can pin on you, maybe Bitcoin would be a better alternative.

Not a hosted wallet like Coinbase or Binance, though. They're probably almost as vulnerable as Credit Suisse.

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30375671

Re: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt politicians

#30

Post by tootie »

kragen wrote: post #29

Another day, another answer to "what is Bitcoin good for?" Earlier today we were discussing the false-positive rate of Google Drive's copyright-scanning approach: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30404587 . What do you suppose the leaker's false-positive rate on "fraudsters and corrupt politicians" is? The article does admit this: > It is not illegal to have a Swiss account and the leak also contained data of leg…

This times 1000 if you have done things wrong and don't want journalists (or law enforcement) to find out
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