Les Gangsters de la Finance

Money laundering, tax evasion, corruption, and stock market manipulation: since the 2008 crisis, HSBC has been at the center of scandals everywhere. Founded in Hong Kong a century and a half ago by Scottish traders linked to the opium trade, HSBC (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) has continued to prosper, unregulated. Today, the British bank with its pirate DNA epitomizes the excesses and abuses of international finance. Laundering criminal proceeds—that of Mexican and Colombian drug cartels—massive tax evasion, corruption, and currency and interest rate manipulation: since the 2008 crisis, this giant has been regularly and impunity-impunity-impunity for numerous scandals. Because the opaque HSBC, an expert in shell companies, whose coffers overflow with cash deposited by its discreet and dubious clients, has become "too big to jail." The bank, worth some $3 trillion, always gets away with paltry fines. A bridge between East and West, it now also serves as a pipeline for hundreds of billions of euros of Chinese capital heading out to conquer Western markets: HSBC is now sailing under the red flag. Transcript