Why criminal bankers must stay out of jail

by Jon Rappoport

July 1, 2022

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Because people forget, and because recent history and its crimes go down a hole where they sit in the dark and decay without consequences, I bring back some of my earlier articles. Here is one, from 2012:

Aside from their normal duties, banks serve as a social construct. They assure the population that money is in the right place. Vaults, accounts. Banks are where the money goes.

Of course, that idea has broken down in recent years, as people have become aware that banks do bad things.

Still, people maintain a certain amount of faith in these archons of money.

There is one thing, though, that must not happen. It would register too high a psychic shock for the population: bankers going to jail. Not just one or two of them, but a whole gaggle. All sorts of bankers being led off in chains would shatter public confidence. The people might realize that:

Bankland is gangland.

So, in order to maintain some semblance of public confidence in banks, a legal wrinkle is introduced.

You launder billions in drug money and terrorist money, and when you get caught, you say you’re sorry and you go free. It’s paradise.

There’s an official DOJ name for the apology. It’s called “deferred prosecution.”

The guilty-as-sin bankers a) say they’re sorry, b) swear they won’t do it again, and c) pay a fine, which always turns out to be a minor fraction of the proceeds of the criminal enterprise.

WND reports: Stuart Gulliver, chief honcho at banking behemoth HSBC, which was found guilty of massive money laundering, said the bank accepts responsibility “for past mistakes…we have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again.”

And poof. Gulliver walks.

Whereas, the last time I looked, if you’re moving cocaine in New York, rather than laundering the cocaine profits, “I’m sorry” doesn’t quite cut it when you’re busted.

By the way, the meaning of the word “defer” is “postpone” or “put off” until later. But with bankers, deferred prosecution is a cover for absolutely no criminal prosecution at any time and no prison sentences ever. I guess they didn’t want to call it “making prosecution vanish.”

Also, Mr. Gulliver of HSBC, if you noticed, was apologizing for “mistakes.” Laundering billions of dollars was evidently a series of accidental and unintended happenings, much like adding columns of numbers incorrectly. These people know how to twist meanings.

In bankland, the only thing keeping a CEO from sleeping at night is the inability to stop laughing.

John Cruz, the whistleblower who helped take HSBC down, had a slightly different take on the bank’s “mistakes.” He called the government’s $1.9 billion fine “a joke.” He said, “This bank is organized crime.” He asserted that HSBC has laundered trillions of dollars.

Cruz gave the DOJ tapes of bank employees discussing their crimes, but apparently deferred prosecution won the day. No jail for anyone.

Bill Conroy, one of the best drug-war reporters around, writing at NarcoNews, names the following banks who have been accused of major laundering and, instead of criminal trials, have been granted deferred prosecution:

Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wachovia (bought by Wells Fargo), ING, Standard Chartered, American Express International.

A nice group. A high-toned group.

“What did you do at the office today, Daddy?”

“I laundered four hundred million dollars for the Sinaloa Cartel, Jimmy.”

Sidebar: When you live in bankland, and you end up on the short end of your own criminal scam pushing mortgage-backed derivatives, you win “deferred prosecution plus.” No apology necessary, and you can lay your hands on a few hundred billion from the government, as part of a bailout. This is even easier than washing drug dollars.

The government will tell you their bank regulators are stretched thin, overworked, and underpaid. But correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t the whole point of laundering money turning monstrous amounts of raw cash into digitized entries in bank accounts?

And if so, aren’t there places in the pipeline where giant containers full of money actually arrive at back doors?

Aren’t those back doors, in whatever countries they exist, rather easy to spot? Don’t the CIA and numerous other intelligence agencies have time to find those doors…if they want to?

Actually, in bankland, you have powerful intelligence agencies standing by to grease your rails and watch your back.

And life keeps getting better.

Do you seriously think these alphabet government agencies handle guard duty, year after year, decade after decade, watching the back doors and taking their little piece of the cartels’ action, while the privileged residents of bankland rake in the more serious money?

No, no. The agencies want and get full partnerships. In the whole enterprise.

In the cologne-scented atmosphere of bankland, consequences are deferred.

You go to an Ivy League school, you get your degree, you move to New York, you go to work for a bank, and after a while you wash billions of dollars for the Sinaloa. You take the train back to Scarsdale every night and ride home in a taxi. You vote Republican or Democrat. You occasionally explain to yourself why you have to do what you do.

You know all the best people. You look at them and they look at you, and a silent understanding passes between you. A recognition that you’re both in the same basic kind of business.

You’ve long since decided that, in this world, there are the strong and the weak. If on many streetcorners, in many cities around the world, addicts are showing up to get their next jolt, that’s their problem. You have no problems. You live in bankland.

Oh the stories you could tell. But you don’t.

Your bank loves that liquid cash. And all that money finds its way into the legitimate economies of many countries, and isn’t it a good thing? It’s alchemical. You’re turning the bad into good.

Surely you are.

If Occupy Wall Street had started out with gigantic signs featuring names of prominent banks above the phrase, WASHING BILLIONS IN DRUG MONEY, do you think network television cameras would have been down at Battery Park every day, and do you think moron news anchors and the White House would have been praising those fearless youths in the Park?

Do you really think so?


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Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

19 comments on “Why criminal bankers must stay out of jail

  1. Joe says:

    Anyone who thinks that we don’t need a revolution have their head in the sand

    • JB says:

      Exactly. People should start organizing.

    • george says:

      The sheep are not able to do it. Not to forget that all revolutions were just scams.

      America is a mental institution now with the criminals and the insane in charge. It will self destruct. A dark age will follow.

  2. Stephen Bashaw says:

    John,

    This comment is not related to the post, but I wanted to get your opinion on a subject of deep concern to me.

    I have been a professional composer for 40 years in many different genres of music and enjoy all styles of the art, but I believe any music we experience should be OUR choice, not others.

    Yet, as a culture, we allow our consciences/subconsciences to continually be programmed to believe nihilistic, immoral and profane themes about love, romance, society, culture etc.

    I have read studies where plants thrive when exposed to “higher” forms of music, ie classical, but die within weeks when continually exposed to rock music.

    I continually make requests at restaurants, bookstores and other retail outlets to, at least, turn down the volume of their in-store music because, it is at the least, distracting and at the most extremely annoying. I have also quit patronizing establishments such as Barnes and Noble for their in store experience.

    But then I am also amazed when I have gone to alternative, natural doctors for various issues, they also have the Rolling Stones blaring in their waiting rooms.

    Why are we allowing, as we do in other areas of our life, popular music to dictate our values. Is it only because “it has a good beat and you can dance to it?” Is it purely a physical, primal connection?

    What is this doing to us as a society?

    Have we completely lost control of this aspect of our culture?

    I believe one of the reasons it is allowed is that it keeps us in an perpetually immature and juvenile stage of our life.

    Music has always been a major part of my life. Yet, I feel that I grew out of the adolescent connection with such themes as “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction or “If You Want it, here it is come and get it,” etc., etc., a long time ago.

    Evidently that is not the norm.

    If, as individuals and as a society, we are suppose to be continually evolving to higher planes of understanding, compassion and consciousness, why do give this major part of our culture a pass by continuing to allow it to pervade our lives?

    What can we do?

    • Roundball Shaman says:

      “… but I believe any music we experience should be OUR choice, not others. Yet, as a culture, we allow our consciences/subconsciences to continually be programmed to believe nihilistic, immoral and profane themes about love, romance, society, culture etc…What can we do?”

      This is very perceptive on your part to recognize this.

      Music is used to dehumanize us. And so are… Movies… Television… Anti-Social Media… and other forms of Degrading Social Engineering that we are surrounded by on a daily basis.

      We can only control the Music in spaces that We ‘control’ such as our homes and vehicles. Public Spaces are generally out of reach and control (per design). Some individual businesses might honor your request for certain music (or even NO music if it’s demeaning). But today that’s pretty much fighting a losing battle. The mob usually rules… and the mob today seems to feed off that toxic stuff.

      Just stop supporting with money, time, and energy those businesses and places that choose to spread dissonance and degrading sounds and messages. Sounds have a very profound influence on our bodies and energies. Dissonant and degrading sounds damage us greatly. It is like taking poisons into our bodies. You simply have to get away from that crap.

      If you must go somewhere that pushes that stuff… earplugs! Seriously. If you can’t get them to change their ways then you shut it down from entering your body. Or keep air buds on with your own sounds going.

      You can try to have an honest conversation with the Manager or Owners of a business to express your concerns. And while They may not care or listen to you… you have shared something of great value with Them and once you have They bear the consequences of what They decide to do (or not do) about it.

      Every chance you get… fill your own Personal Space with music and sounds and podcasts that nurture and feed the soul. This will build up your tolerance to the garbage stuff whenever you find yourself around it.

      A Master once said… “If They do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.”

      So it is with anything negative in our lives. We don’t have time to fool around with that crap. We need to shake off that bad dust and plant ourselves in more positive and nurturing surroundings ASAP.

    • darrell says:

      The traditional enemies of God and of the human race who rule over us and over our politicians know that demoralization is a key element to control over the minds and behavior of the masses. Being enemies of God and servants of the Evil One, they become enemies of truth, goodness (moral order), and beauty. Thus they promote erroneous ideologies (various “isms”), immorality of all kinds, and ugliness in art, architecture, music, etc. In the realm of music, Dr E Michael Jones covers the history of the degradation of music from classical to the barbaric, revolutionary music in our times which serves the goals of our totalitarian Masters in his book, Dionysos Rising: The Birth of Cultural Revolution out of the Spirit of Music, also discussed in video interviews.

    • Kaatje says:

      Very perceptive. For this reason I’ve carried earplugs for over a decade. And even then I have asked to turn the volume down. Have you also noticed that all movies and TV have increased invasive sounding soundtrack? No more gentle music in between dialogue. And the volume of music in between movie scenes is horrifying. I can’t stand it.

      The invasion of “music” in public spaces also hampers genuine connection between people. And the loudness is a huge problem for people with disabilities (loud sounds make walking harder, in my case worsen neuropathy), hearing issues, tinnitus, cause hearing loss etc. People seem acclimated to this wall of sound from birth.

      We’re not the only ones, I occasionally read a complaint, but overall we’re prisoners in a cacaphony of noise. And documentaries! I can’t watch them anymore either given the loud music (Netflix especially). You’d think they’d realize there’s a huge market for film, TV and docs geared towards people with autism,hearing issues or needing more ASMR culture. But no.

      I have noticed for decades that volume is increased during commercials which is why I stopped watching TV. But the last ten years it’s been noticable, that shift towards “sound terror”.

    • Peter Harter says:

      Yes, popular music is a tool of our enemies. One reason rock and Roll was invented is that jazz is too difficult to produce. It takes too much talent. There is too much value-added in the practice room. Elite horn players have too much power and it’s hard for studios to get the upper hand. They wanted something cheap and easily reproducible. Also, Music is a door into spiritualism and the occult. World percussion leads straight into psychedelic experimentation which leads to an occult spirituality. Christian rock is the worst music on the planet. God has been listening to organs and cathedral choirs for 1000 years, do you think he wants to listen to Christian rock now? He doesn’t.

    • Sean says:

      I blast classical music while riding my new 2022 Honda Goldwing. But make no mistake, I love to ROCK. Though I keep that down at traffic lights. I have some musical etiquette.

    • Chris A says:

      Totally agree with your comment. I guess that’s why all that old rock music was recycled to the advertising agencies. The bands sold their whole catalogues to the corporations who own the ad agencies.

  3. Roundball Shaman says:

    “Why criminal bankers must stay out of jail”

    Simple: Because we are now a Nation (and World) of ‘MEN’ and not ‘LAW’.

    And that’s the only reason you need right there.

    And Criminal Bankers are the ‘Men’ that run the World who are fully above and beyond the reach of those silly things called LAWS.

    And They are big ones that contributed to the full-on shredding and burning of the Rule of Law in The Exceptional Nation and other places.

    ‘Laws’ remains only for ‘The-People-Who-Don’t-Count’. Gotta keep those feral animals in line, right!?

    In fact, there are so many laws on the books everywhere that you are violating several laws just sitting in chair somewhere and breathing and doing nothing else…

    Why, your ‘Carbon Footprint’ by breathing! You awful person!

    Why, you could be thinking all kinds of Wrong Think as you sit there.

    Why, you are not furthering the aims of Rampant Worldwide Wokeism!

    That chair? You may have stolen it!

    All kinds of things you are doing ‘wrong’…

    The ‘Laws’ are such that ‘They’ can do no wrong. And We the People can do no right.

    It’s been said that… ‘He who controls the money controls the World.’

    And it’s also true that He and She who controls the money is above the Law.

    It will be fun to see those Men and Women with pockets stuffed with ill gotten gain trying to enter those Pearly Gates one day.

    And THAT is one place that They can’t buy their way in to nor is their ‘Money’ any good there.

    Karmic Law. The one Law They can’t escape. Hope there’s a Big Jail up there to hold them all.

    • but they don’t even care because they don’t believe. They think that with money they can buy paradise.

      ~~~

      mas eles nem se importam pois não creem .acham que com dinheiro compram o paraíso.

  4. Paul says:

    Similarly…

    Matt Taibbi wrote an excellent Piece about the 2008-09 bank-mortgage catastrophe.
    After many of the crimes & methodologies were figured out, he spoke with a DOJ worker & said something like, ‘you really are gonna put these guys away.’ The worker replied, ‘no.’ Matt said, ‘why not?’ Worker said, ‘you don’t understand, these guys would never survive in jail.”

    Jon Stewart, on his Show, poked fun at the Obama DOJ.

    At the time,
    There were a # of big finds,
    On high-crimes,
    But all resulted,
    In only fines.

    Stewart likened
    The Obama-DOJ
    To an OC-Boss,
    Just lookin’ for his cut.

    ~~~

    Finding doors.

  5. Lookup says:

    No one EVER talks about the trillions of dollars being laundered: because millions of Americans endlessly drug themselves. WE ARE THE MARKET. Stop blaming them for the laundering of YOUR drug habits!

  6. ICFUBAR says:

    There are many reasons bankers do not stand trial. The biggest one is that the BIS has declared that bankers engaged in banking business have been granted immunity…even if their actions are criminal! This applies even after these folks leave the positions.

    Another reason is that all bank documents were also declared inviolable. There are other immunities that have also been granted by the BIS. These get out of jail free cards only apply to “systemically important banks” and staff as declared and listed by the BIS. John Titus did an above excellent documentary in uncovering these BIS dictates that you can find on his channel “Best Evidence.”

  7. A Reader emailed me the following comment:

    ~~~

    Alexandre Koyré, born Alexandr Vladimirovich (or Volfovich) Koyra; 29 August 1892 – 28 April 1964)

    Réflexions sur le mensonge

    “The mob believes everything it is told, provided only that it be repeated over and over. Provided too that its passions, hatreds, fears are catered to. Nor need one try to stay within the limits of plausibility: on the contrary, the grosser, the bigger, the cruder the lie, the more readily is it believed and followed. Nor is there any need to avoid contradictions: the mob never notices; needless to pretend to correlate what is said to some with what is said to others: each person or group believes only what he is told, not what anyone else is told; needless to strive for coherence: the mob has no memory; needless to pretend to any truth: the mob is radically incapable of perceiving it: the mob can never comprehend that its own interests are what is at stake.”

  8. A Reader emailed me the following comment:

    ~~~

    Do you have any idea how they’ll be able to launder money in a CBDC [central bank digital currency] system? Isn’t the whole beauty of cash that it can slosh around as needed? Won’t the criminals and criminal agencies fight against CBDC? The Great Resetters, the bankers and the alphabet agencies are all singing from the same hymnal, right? So how will this work?

    Also, do you think there’s any way that the bankers will ever be held to account? (I could ask the same question of any of the cartels currently wreaking havoc, seemingly immune to legal consequences.)

  9. A Reader emailed me the following comment:

    ~~~

    Once again I concur 100%. I have thought for years that these major banks have set up a network of money laundering that the public at large is totally ignorant of. They also have strong allies in the federal government “law enforcement” divisions, and they work hand-in-hand to carry out this sorry, criminal enterprise.

    Yet another sector to add to the ever-growing list of corrupt American institutions. Just like the Holy Bible teaches, man is utterly corrupt. Give him a chance to prove it, and he never disappoints.

  10. Chris A says:

    It’s the same scam with big pharma. Get caught, say your sorry, pay a fine, promise not to do it again. I bet all those fines they pay are tax $$. If they even pay them at all. How would we even know?

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