US banks' role in Mexican drug trade

Ever wonder why it is the border between Mexico and the US is not really a secure border?
And, why the Obama administration is coming down so hard on Arizona for enforcing immigration/border crossing laws?

Could it be, because the US administration really doesn't want a secure US/Mexican border? One that may impede that which is being transported across the border?

A DC-9 jet lands in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City

The crew attempts to keep soldiers away by saying their is a dangerous oil spill.
The soldiers become suspicious and check the plane. What do they find?

They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else.

The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp.

This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. San Francisco's Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers - including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.

The admission came in an agreement that Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years.

Wachovia admitted it didn't do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion for Mexican currency exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. That's the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history - a sum equal to one-third of Mexico's current gross domestic product.

So Wachovia strikes a deal with federal prosecutors? Which means, we have to know this is a token plea. Meant to ensure the masses, to create the perception, the government is getting tough. But, would they government really 'get tough' on the banksters?

Now for a word from an insider who quit the bank in disgust-

"It's the banks laundering money for the cartels that finances the tragedy," said Martin Woods, director of Wachovia's anti-money-laundering unit in London from 2006 to 2009.

Woods says he quit the bank in disgust after executives ignored his documentation that drug dealers were funneling money through Wachovia's branch network.

"If you don't see the correlation between the money laundering by banks and the 22,000 people killed in Mexico, you're missing the point," he said.

Banks profits, open borders and chaos. Money laundering for drug traffickers. If you don't see the correlation, your missing the point.

This bit of news is made much more credible, not that I had any doubts, of the bankers involvements with drug trafficking, when you recall this older posting February 11/2009

Wow, Drug money flowed into banks!

The United Nations' crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Standard operating procedure for the banks. Laundering drug money. So very profitable!!!