Drug War Victims Sue HSBC for Laundering Billions for 'Terrorist' Mexican Cartels Rafa Fernandez De Castro - Fusion
go to original February 24, 2016

Mexicans protest in front of the HSBC bank headquarters in Mexico City. Mexican regulators levied a $28 million fine against the Mexico subsidiary of London-based HSBC bank for failing to prevent money laundering. (AP/Eduardo Verdugo)

Families of drug war victims are suing London-based bank HSBC under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act, demanding compensation from the institution for allegedly providing financial support to Mexican drug cartels.

The lawsuit, filed in a Texas district court earlier this month, could be precedent-setting if prosecuting attorneys successfully convince the judge that Mexican cartels are terrorist organizations and that their violent activities were aided by laundering money through international financial institutions, in this case HSBC.

The lawsuit cites “torture, beheadings, hanging corpses, public assassinations of government officials and journalists, mass executions, kidnappings, attacks on civilians and car bombs” to make a case that cartels, specifically the Sinaloa, Juárez and Zetas, should be classified as terrorist organizations. HSBC, the lawsuit claims, was “knowingly” laundering money for these cartels while they were involved in all that nasty business.

“With full knowledge of the drug cartels’ terrorist activities, the HSBC Defendants (collectively HSBC) — a global network of international financial institutions — knowingly provided continuous and systematic material support to the cartels and their acts of terrorism by laundering millions of dollars for them,” reads the complaint against HSBC Group and its U.S. and Mexico branches. “As a proximate result of HSBC’s material support to the Mexican drug cartels, numerous lives, including those of the Plaintiffs, have been destroyed.”

Read the rest at Fusion

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!