Money laundering by criminals and "evil-doers" is always mentioned as a negative by cryptocurrency skeptics, and always a focus of attention by regulators. But wait. THAT is a total misconception and the real culprits are.......banks. A Bloomberg report says that criminal activities (drugs, etc) amount to over $2 trillion annually with only a paltry $90 million passing through crypto exchanges. Hardly noticeable. In fact, banks pay more in fines for allowing illicit transactions to go through their systems (complicit or not) than than the total amount attributed to crypto exchanges. Hard to believe, but money laundering and crime didn't begin with cryptocurrencies. Read more below.

(Bill Taylor/ Fintek Capital)

"Cryptocurrency skeptics oftentimes refer to virtual currencies as ”only used by criminals to launder money.” Although such statements are severely misguided, this misconception is nonetheless quite common.

Bloomberg says money laundering activities register $2 trillion a year. Now, however, a recent report from Bloomberg now makes it plain for anyone to see that traditional banks are involved in money laundering far more often than cryptocurrencies.

In fact, Bloomberg notes that illegal transactions involving drugs and other crime amount to an absolutely massive $2 trillion a year. Moreover, traditional banks appear to be highly involved in laundering these funds.

Knowingly or unknowingly, high-profile banks such as JP Morgan, Standard Chartered, and Citigroup have all played a part in laundering funds related to malicious activities – and have subsequently been forced to pay fines for violating sanctions.

In addition to this, HSBC recently failed to monitor approximately $670 billion in transfers from Mexico. They were also unable to notice purchases of around $9.4 billion US dollars.

This allowed both Mexican and Columbian drug cartels to leverage HSBC’s accounts in order to launder illicit funds. When it became clear that HSBC had failed to live up to AML (anti-money laundering) regulations, the bank was fined a relatively meager $1.9 billion...."

Full Story at Toshitimes.com