Whistleblower explains ABCs of money laundering

Alleges suspicious pattern of deposits by HSBC using credit card transactions

NEW YORK - A review of HSBC corporate accounts demonstrating a suspicious pattern of deposits and withdrawals illustrates how credit card transactions can be used in money laundering activity, according to a whistleblower who has provided WND with more than 1,000 pages of evidence against the global bank.

The evidence includes customer account ledgers for dozens of companies through which the financial institution was laundering money each month, charges John Cruz, a former relationship manager for the bank's southern New York region.

"Studying the pattern of deposit and withdrawal activity in the suspect corporate accounts provides abundant evidence that bank employees at HSBC were directly involved manipulating fictitious corporate accounts in a money laundering scheme that extended to the highest levels of bank management and bank security," Cruz said.

"The money laundering in the suspect accounts tended to start slowly and build rapidly, to the point where millions of dollars were being wired into and wired out of the accounts monthly."

The series of Articles on HSBC already has caused fallout for this reporter and for WND, which saw one of the articles temporarily blocked when HSBC filed a complaint with an Internet provider that turned out to be unwarranted.

HSBC is reportedly under investigation by a U.S. Senate committee, and WND has provided material to federal investigators.

Exhibit 1 is a checking account record from a redacted HSBC account in which PayPal and American Express transactions play a prominent role. The two credit card-related companies, as WND has reported, have been implicated in the alleged HSBC international money-laundering scheme involving hundreds of billions of dollars.

As seen in Exhibit 1, the PayPal link into the account was established in the bank statement period that began July 25, 2008, and ended Aug. 26, 2008

The checking account at the beginning of the statement period had a balance of only $500 and the first deposit from PayPal was $1.01 in total, followed the same day by two additional deposits, amounting to 15 cents each.

"The point of beginning this way was the have the first transactions be so small that no one in bank security would notice the transaction as important," Cruz explained. "For the first 60 to 90 days, the criminals within the bank would proceed cautiously so the account would become established within the bank computer system without drawing unnecessary attention."

Cruz also pointed out the initial PayPal deposits tended to be in small amounts because the goal of the money launderers was to make sure the PayPal transaction facility linked successfully to the account, as preparation for transferring large sums into the account through PayPal.

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