Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Mega Edition: Dark Money Is The Lifeblood Of Operations Like Epstein's (5/31/26)

Transcript

Mega Edition: Dark Money Is The Lifeblood Of Operations Like Epstein's (5/31/26) · The Epstein Chronicles

0:00
Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the Epstein Chronicles.
0:04
In this look back episode, we're going to take another
0:07
look at Jeffrey Epstein's finances and why banks kept doing
0:12
business with Jeffrey Epstein. This article was published by Vox
0:20
and the author of this article is Emily Stewart. Headline
0:27
why banks kept doing business with Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein's case
0:31
is an example of how banks often prioritize rich clients
0:35
over other concerns, moral or even legal, when the bottom
0:39
line is at stake. There's a lot of mystery surrounding
0:44
Jeffrey Epstein before and after his death, including when it
0:48
comes to how he made his money or even how
0:51
big his fortune was. But we do know that some
0:55
of the biggest banks in the world did business with them,
0:58
despite reported internal fees flags about the risks. Look, all
1:02
of these banks knew what Epstein was up to, They
1:05
all knew who Epstein was, and they continue to do
1:08
business with them. Do you see what. It's just a
1:11
coincidence that Jess Staley ends up losing his job. It's
1:15
just a coincidence that Leon Black is in trouble. It's
1:18
just a coincidence that Glenn Dubin's in trouble. They all
1:21
knew the scumbag viper that was in their midst, and
1:25
they did not care. The situation sheds light on one
1:30
of the ugly truths about the banking industry. Firms are
1:34
sometimes more inclined to ignore red flags, take on risks,
1:38
or even bend the law than they are to lose
1:40
a wealthy client. And really it all comes down to
1:43
the bottom line and the fact that there's no penalties
1:48
for these people when this shit happens. So these executives
1:51
are able to do whatever they want, whenever they want,
1:54
and there's no hammer to drop on them even when
1:56
they get caught. Just go back to the financial meltdown, folks.
2:00
How many of these bankers went to jail. Oh, that's right,
2:03
none of them. In Epstein's case, he appears to have
2:08
been bringing in not only his money to the banks,
2:10
but also many other wealthy connections, and so there was
2:14
a temptation to look the other way on red flags.
2:18
And again this is why I talk about Rico so much.
2:21
We're not interested in this other money that was wrapped
2:23
up with his. It was being bundled together, but we
2:26
should piecemeal it and look at it as ala carte. Sorry,
2:30
I can't do that. All of this money that was
2:32
coming in together and bundled, this is all predicates for RICO.
2:39
JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank have come under scrutiny amid
2:42
reports from the New York Times about their dealings with Epstein,
2:45
the New York financier, pedophile and convicted sex offender. According
2:50
to the Times, JP Morgan kept Epstein on as a
2:53
client well passed as two thousand eight guilty plea for
2:56
soliciting prostitution. That's ridiculous. We all know that it was
3:00
an underage girl, and it was multiple girls, and it
3:03
wasn't prostitution, So it should say for raping little girls.
3:06
That's what it should say. And despite recommendations from compliance
3:11
officers that it cut ties with him because of potential
3:14
and legal and reputational risks associated with his accounts. A
3:18
similar scenario played out at Deutsche Bank, where as at
3:22
JP Morgan, executives reportedly ignored compliance officers' concerns about suspicious transactions.
3:30
And when he says executives, he means, you know, Jess
3:32
Staley and the rest of them, these guys have zero shame.
3:38
They don't care. They don't care about anything. They care
3:42
about more money and increasing their payout at the end
3:45
of the year. Thankfully, Jess Staley and his golden parachute
3:48
has been clipped. But man, oh man, how many of
3:51
these people who were working with Epstein made a fortune
3:54
off the back of these survivors. According to former regulator, prosecutors,
4:01
and other legal experts that I spoke with, ex Epstein's
4:04
case is an example of how banks often prioritize rich
4:07
clients over other concerns, moral or even legal, when the
4:12
bottom line is at stake. Once some suspicious transactions are surfaced,
4:16
then it becomes an issue for executive management to decide
4:20
whether to forward them or bury them and keep the
4:23
client happy, said Martin Shield, a former investigator at the IRS.
4:28
And it is crucial right that these banks file these stars.
4:32
But what does it matter considering we know that Darren
4:36
Endyke performed over what ninety five transactions all at the
4:40
price of seventy five hundred dollars per so that he'd
4:43
stay under the regulations, and nobody said anything then and
4:51
still to this day, he hasn't been charged with structuring
4:54
or Title thirty one evasion so what's the point of
4:58
having these laws on the books. That's the point of
5:00
having them at all. JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank reportedly
5:06
looked the other way on shady activity from Epstein. According
5:09
to The Times, JP Morgan's compliance team started a wide
5:13
ranging review of its customers at the end of two
5:16
thousand and eight, after the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme was
5:19
revealed JP Morgan had been Madeoff's primary bank. Oh shocking.
5:25
I mean, look, how much more do we need to
5:27
see from JP Morgan at this point to know that
5:30
it's a corrupt organization as powerful as they are as well.
5:36
It's ridiculous, man. I'm really tired of these financial institutions
5:40
giving the marching orders to are our politicians and then
5:44
the rest of us suffering. During that review, compliance officers
5:50
at JP Morgan, which had a relationship with Epstein from
5:52
the late nineteen nineties to twenty thirteen, flagged Epstein's accounts
5:57
as potentially problematic and recommend did the bank drop him
6:01
as a client, But the bank stuck with him. Per
6:04
the Times reporting, Mary Erdos, who heads the bank's asset
6:08
and wealth management division, stepped in to keep Epstein as
6:11
a client, in part because he helped JP Morgan recruit
6:14
new customers for its private banking division for the super rich.
6:18
So again, all these people who were being recruited by
6:21
Epstein to come work at this bank, I mean, to
6:23
come and invest at this bank. Why haven't we heard
6:26
anything about them? Where's the media bashing them? You don't
6:30
see it right? It's because these are the titans of industry.
6:33
These are the people that were in Epstein's Black Book. Oh,
6:36
I had nothing to do with Epstein. Now I just
6:38
find myself in his book. But these are all the
6:41
same people man the super rich, and these people continue
6:45
to manipulate things and bend things into their favor. And
6:54
it wasn't just Irodos. James Staley. Jess Staley, a former
6:58
formerly at JP Moore Morgan and now chief executive at Barclays,
7:02
had built up the relationship with Epstein and even visited
7:05
Epstein at his Palm Beach, Florida office. During Epstein's jail
7:09
term in two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine,
7:13
Epstein got to leave during the day to go to
7:15
work as part of the deal he cut with prosecutors,
7:18
So Jess Staley was meeting with Epstein while he was
7:21
out on work release. Folks, Oh, he has no idea
7:24
who Epstein is. Jess Staley should have never lost his job.
7:27
This is a hit job. Shut up man. Joseph EVANGELISTI,
7:33
a JP Morgan spokesperson, refuted the Times reporting and told
7:36
the publication that Urdos would never overrule our compliance team
7:40
or other control functions to retain a customer. He said,
7:43
she has only one recollection of formally meeting with the customer,
7:47
which was the day she fired him as a client.
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So she's the hero of this story. Just remember that
7:53
JP Morgan. They're the heroes here. They fired They fired
7:57
Jeffrey Epstein as a client. A JP Morgan spokesperson declined
8:02
to comment on the record to Vox. After Epstein and
8:05
JP Morgan cut ties, the financier Pedophile went to Deutsche Bank,
8:10
which has long had a reputation for doing business with
8:14
shady characters and has come under scrutiny for its dealings
8:17
with President Donald Trump. According again, according to The Times,
8:22
anti money laundering officers raised concerns about how doing business
8:27
with Epstein because it could damage the bank's reputation, and
8:30
at least one time they noticed potentially illegal activity, but
8:34
it's not clear what happened after that. Nothing happened. They
8:38
let him go on about his business. They let him
8:40
continue to conduct his financial business. Nobody stepped up to
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the plate. There's no heroes here. They reportedly put together
8:52
a Suspicious Activity report, which is a way for banks
8:55
to flag to the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Division Financial
8:59
Crimes and Horsement Network FINCIN that something suspicious is going
9:03
on that might warrant looking into, but it's not clear
9:07
whether the report ever actually made it to the authorities.
9:10
Look when those FINSIN reports are filed, they go into
9:13
a database, right and very few of those reports are
9:16
ever pulled out by the authorities by the FINSEN agents
9:19
to look at. The Times reports that once Deutsche Bank
9:25
realized the possible extent of Epstein's crimes following the Miami
9:29
Heralds reporting on him, Deutsche Bank submitted a suspicious Activity
9:32
report to FINSEN on Epstein, but generally stars are confidential,
9:37
meaning it's impossible to know whether JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank,
9:42
or others submitted such reports to the government over the years.
9:46
The Herald's reporting also prompted Deutsche Bank to exit the
9:49
relationship with Epstein. You know that's hilarious too. We're talking
9:53
about Deutsche Bank, right, These people have more money than
9:56
God himself. You mean to tell me they had no
9:58
idea who Epstein was and they needed Julie K. Brown's
10:01
report to tell them what was up. If that's the case,
10:05
nobody should be doing business with these guys at this point. Really,
10:08
you people are so ignorant, You have no idea who
10:11
Jeffrey Epstein is. Huh, Okay, sure we believe you. Deutsche
10:16
Bank is closely examining any business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,
10:21
and we are absolutely committed to cooperating with all relevant authorities.
10:26
A spokesperson for the bank, Troy Gravitt, said in an
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emailed statement to Vox. Banks have the incentive to look
10:33
the other way on a lot of things. They most
10:35
certainly do. And again, when we go back to the
10:39
financial meltdown and nobody going to prison, it was pretty
10:43
much go time for these guys. They saw that if
10:45
nobody was going to prison, then then it was pretty
10:48
much free reign to do whatever they want. Financial institutions
10:54
had to know that there was some issues regarding Epstein,
10:57
said Hanado Mariatti or former federal prosecutor. Of course, the
11:02
guy had a criminal history, but there's a lot of
11:05
gray area there. If the banks knew specifically that Epstein
11:08
was engaged in criminal activity and failed to report it,
11:12
that would be a very big deal and the consequences
11:15
would be significant. But if they suspected something was up
11:19
and failed to report it, that's not great either. Or
11:22
maybe they did file suspicious activity reports, which would then
11:26
place responsibility on the government. Yeah, I think the responsibilities
11:30
on both groups. Just because you put the SAR in
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doesn't wash your responsibility of what's going on. All that
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means is that you've done your due diligence and you're
11:40
alerting the government. So if you're really going to be
11:43
someone who wants to safeguard their company, you would stop
11:46
the transaction and get more information. This scenario sheds light
11:54
on anti money laundering laws in the United States and
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other mechanisms in place meant to compel banks and their
12:00
customers to behave the most lucrative behaviors, they are not
12:04
always the most ethical ones, and moving money into offshore
12:08
accounts banks looking the other way when something looks a
12:11
little fishy and finding other loopholes in the system, many
12:14
of which are legal, is sort of the name of
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the game. And this is what I talk about with
12:19
the politicians. You see, everybody wants to focus on, you know,
12:22
the money launderers. But a lot of the problem is
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that the politicians who put these laws in place left
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a bunch of loopholes. They left so they left it
12:31
so that the technicalities can be exploited by people with money,
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not by me or you, but by their friends. You know,
12:38
like when a programmer creates a program, but they leave
12:41
a back door so they can access that program. It's
12:44
the same shit here. Offshore bank accounts, for example, are
12:49
allowed provided people report the money in them to the
12:52
government and pay taxes. Accordingly, clients such as Epstein, who
12:56
can not only bring their money to the banks but
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also deliver other wealthy people through their connections, are especially attractive,
13:03
even if there are legal or moral concerns about them.
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Epstein is an unusual case, but the broader issue is
13:11
whether banks should refrain from lending to or otherwise doing
13:14
business with customers presenting a high risk of illegal behavior,
13:18
said New York University law professor Jeffrey Miller in an email.
13:23
It's a tricky It's tricky because banks are not really
13:26
in the business of policing people's morals, but also should
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not be advancing funds to people who are likely to
13:32
use the funds for illegal conduct or who may be
13:36
subject to enforcement actions that make them unable to repay
13:39
the loans. Look, I'm not saying that the banks have
13:42
a moral responsibility to vet every single person who does
13:46
business with them, But when you have a high profile
13:48
client like Epstein and there is a bunch of smoke,
13:52
you know that there is fire, and they just ignored
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all of it right forever and ever, just ignored it.
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If the Times reporting is true, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank,
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we're making a cost benefit analysis of the legal and
14:07
reputational risks associated with doing business with Epstein, and apparently
14:12
at the executive level deciding it was worth taking a chance.
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Of course it was because there's no consequences. Why would
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they care If nobody's going to lose their job, if
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nobody's going to go to jail, if no one's going
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to be held accountable these people, why would they care
14:26
one bit about continuing to do business with Epstein, El
14:30
Chopo or anyone else. It's an issue regulators and law
14:38
enforcement officials have flagged over and over again. Bank's profit
14:42
motive often outweighs compliance responsibilities. It is unlikely executives at
14:48
the bank were looking at Epstein's accounts and explicitly saying
14:52
this is definitely legal, but will give him a pass
14:54
because he and his friends are rich. But they were
14:57
perhaps fine with looking the other way and not digging
15:01
deeper into what was going on. And look, lies of
15:04
omission are still lies, folks. Let's remember that if these
15:07
people know the deal and they're still lying, well they're lying,
15:10
even if they're not telling you that. It also it's
15:17
also the case that Epstein's circumstances were rather unique. Matthew L. Schwartz,
15:22
a partner at the law firm Boys Schiller Flexner, LLP,
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explained that compliance and anti money laundering work at banks
15:29
is often focused on financial in proprieties, tax evasion, drug trafficking,
15:34
sanctions violations, terrorist financing, or other crimes that directly involved money.
15:40
It's not clear whether that was happening with Epstein, who's
15:43
two thousand and eight guilty plea at least was related
15:46
to prostitution. Epstein prior to his death, was under investigation
15:51
for sex trafficking. Look, remember this is an article from
15:54
twenty nineteen. We all know that Epstein was a money launderer.
15:58
We all know that he was alleged a forensic accountant
16:01
for the government, someone who chased down funds that were
16:05
thought lost. So to think that he wasn't engaging in
16:09
all kinds of shady money deals is very very naive.
16:15
That is, it seems to me a crime that is
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not usually the focus of anti money laundering program. Schwartz said.
16:22
The reputational issues are easy to process, the legal risk
16:26
is tougher. According to The Times, Epstein's finances in the
16:29
wake of his death could become a point of focus
16:32
for investigators. The banks and people that did business with them,
16:36
and their willingness to potentially look the other way on
16:38
his shady dealings, moral and otherwise will likely be under
16:44
the microscope. Where's the law enforcement de terns for the
16:47
banks to really make the anti money laundering program a
16:51
number one priority as opposed to somewhere below taking care
16:55
of customer priority? Sheil said, that's what investigators might find out.
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So we're what three years on from this article and
17:02
still not a nothing. Nothing's changed any of these bankers
17:06
going to prison. You know it's changed right now if
17:09
you make six hundred dollars transactions via PayPal while they're
17:11
looking at you. Meanwhile in the financial sector, well, the
17:17
band continues to play on. If you'd like to contact me,
17:22
you can do that at Bobby Kapuchi at proton mail
17:24
dot com. That's bo bb Y c ap you Cci
17:29
at ProtonMail dot com. You can also find me on
17:32
Twitter at Bobby underscore cap you Cci. The link that
17:38
we discussed goes is in the description box. All right, folks,
17:43
until later on, have a great day today. What we're
17:49
going to talk about is Deutsche Bank a little bit more.
17:53
We're going to add a little more context to the
17:56
whole entire shit show that is the financial system, and
18:02
especially an outlet like Deutsche Bank, who knew the sort
18:09
of scumbags they were dealing with, they knew the kind
18:13
of person Jeffrey Epstein was, and they still did business
18:16
with them. This isn't before anyone knew that Jeffrey Epstein
18:22
was a sex offender. This is after J. P. Morgan
18:25
dropped Epstein and Deutsche Bank came strolling right in for
18:29
the save. What do they care if Jeffrey Epstein's a
18:33
convicted sex offender with whose list that they have already
18:37
have at their bank, of all the degenerates and scumbags,
18:41
what the hell's another sex offender added to the roles?
18:47
So they didn't care for one second about Jeffrey Epstein's
18:52
infamy or about Jeffrey Epstein abusing young girls and women.
18:56
The only time they cared is when they got put
18:58
on blast, when they had to pay some penalties for
19:02
their behaviors. Oh, then they took note. Then it's a
19:05
big deal. But leading up to that, what did they
19:09
care all about that money? It is all about the
19:13
fazules to these people, and of course the consolidation of power,
19:17
because if you just have the money and you don't
19:20
have the influence the people on high, well you're not
19:24
worth as much, right, if you're only bringing the money,
19:28
you're not worth as much as somebody who's bringing the
19:31
money and the influence, because we know that information is
19:36
way more valuable than even money to these people. So
19:41
that's why I find it laughable when you have outlets
19:44
like Deutsche Bank, financial institutions like Deutsche Bank acting like
19:48
they had no idea, the type of scumbag vipers they
19:51
were in bed with. It falls on deaf ears with me,
19:56
I know it falls on deaf fears with all of
19:58
you out there, and the general public as a whole
20:02
is starting to get really fed up with places like
20:05
Deutsche Bank and other institutions that are continuously providing financial
20:11
capital to some of the scummiest people amongst us. Our
20:17
article today is from Fortune dot com and this article
20:21
was originally published on July ninth of twenty twenty headline
20:28
Deutsche Bank eagerly took on clients dumped by JP Morgan Chase.
20:33
Now it's facing big fines. So again, this is from July.
20:40
So we have hindsight to guide us and look back
20:43
at what has been revealed now and compare it to
20:47
what was known then. And I think it's always important
20:52
to add as much context as we possibly can in
20:54
these situations, especially when we're talking about the financials, because
20:59
it's confusing, right to keep track of all of these financials,
21:02
all of the different ties that Epstein had with banks
21:05
and financiers, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot, but
21:10
I think that it all comes back to Deutsche Bank.
21:14
I believe that after Epstein was dropped by JP Morgan,
21:18
Deutsche Bank was pretty much the only game left in town.
21:22
So I think if there's a full forensic investigation into
21:27
Jeffrey Epstein and his ties to Deutsche Bank, I believe
21:31
that it will will reveal a whole lot more about
21:34
his wealth building and his financial patterns. Now, I would
21:39
think that they're already doing that, the prosecutors. But if
21:43
they're not, I think it would be a pretty good
21:46
idea to start. This article was authored by Christian Berthelsen.
21:55
The trio of clients that got Deutsche Bank AG and
21:58
regulatory trouble this week had a shared backstory. They were
22:02
all cast offs of JP Morgan, Chase and Company. Now
22:07
we know about JP Morgan, and we know about Jess
22:12
Staley and his help to Jeffrey Epstein as far as
22:18
building wealth and making Jeffrey Epstein a preferred client. Now,
22:24
once Jess Staley leaves the company, all of a sudden,
22:27
they drop Jeffrey Epstein. Now they drop them again. It's
22:33
these little things, these little nuggets that we learn along
22:37
the way, that all build up, right. It's all of
22:40
this circumstantial evidence that all builds up, that turns into
22:43
probable cause, and then that turns into a real, full
22:47
blown investigation. And there is plenty of that here when
22:52
it comes to Jeffrey Epstein and his ties to the
22:54
financial world. So I'd really, really, really really love to
22:58
see a wide, wide net cast over all of these
23:04
people that were involved with him financially, because it is
23:10
about time that these extremely rich, extremely evil people understand
23:19
that they're no longer going to get away with the
23:21
shit that they've been getting away with for all of
23:24
these years. Deutsche Bank moved millions of dollars across the
23:29
globe for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the past decade,
23:34
and billions on behalf of international lenders Danski bank As
23:39
and FBme FBme Bank Limited along the way. The German
23:44
bank missed or disregarded compliance red flags for years. New
23:50
York's Department of Financial Services said Tuesday, in levying one
23:55
hundred and fifty million dollars in penalties and dancek Bank
23:59
is is another important cog in the machine here. If
24:04
you folks are bored out there and you want to
24:06
dive in and do some research, I think dance Bank
24:09
is a good place to dig in. Now. I've done
24:13
some of my own cursory glances into Dance Bank, and
24:19
it is a quite the shadowy operation, shall we say. So,
24:25
if any of you out there are looking for something
24:27
to dig into and you want to take a look
24:31
at some pretty interesting stuff as far as the financials go,
24:35
that's definitely a road to travel. JP Morgan's moves to
24:43
offload those same clients years earlier may have helped it
24:47
dodge a similar bullet. And I wonder, and again, this
24:50
is me spitballing here. I don't have any evidence directly
24:56
appointing to this, but was JP Morgan tipped off? Did
25:01
somebody in the Regulation Department of the United States government
25:06
tip them off and say, hey, look, you guys better
25:08
dump Epstein, You guys better dump these guys because the
25:11
hammer's coming again. We know that there are a lot
25:17
of ties that bind these financial houses and the people
25:21
who were supposed to be monitoring them, all of these
25:25
different you know, the SEC, the Federal Exchange Commission, all
25:30
of these places. All of the people that work in
25:32
these places have worked on Wall Street before usually, so
25:36
it's still a big old boys club and girls club
25:39
by the way of the so called elite monitoring themselves,
25:44
investigating themselves, and then every now and then throwing a
25:48
little bit of sacrificial blood all over the altar for
25:51
the rest of us. See, look, we're doing our jobs. Meanwhile,
25:55
it's obvious that they're not the biggest. US bank stepped
26:04
away from handling money for FBme in two thousand and nine.
26:08
It distanced from the others around twenty and thirteen. The
26:12
same year it undertook broad purge of higher risk clients
26:16
from its correspondent banking business. Yeah, something fishy going on there.
26:21
Pretty sure that JP Morgan was probably tipped off that
26:24
things were going to turn And as it stated just
26:29
here in the article, JP Morgan is the biggest banking
26:31
house in the country and their reach is far and
26:37
it is wide. So it is not beyond the realm
26:41
to think that these people were tipped off that something
26:45
was coming down the road and they dumped all of
26:48
these high profile clients before they could get caught up
26:52
in it. Now, again, I don't have any proof of that. Right,
26:57
just with all that we have learned in this case,
27:01
it's very difficult for me to believe that things just
27:04
happen in a vacuum, the bank had incentive to offload
27:13
risky clients. JP Morgan's primary US regulator, the Office of
27:18
the Comptroller of the Currency, put it on notice in
27:21
early twenty thirteen, faulting its due diligence process and ordering
27:26
it to clean up its anti money laundering controls. All right,
27:30
so there you go. They they got the heads up
27:33
from the Office of the Comptroller that they were not
27:37
in line with what the federal guidelines state they should
27:41
be doing. So JP Morgan, trying to get ahead of
27:45
the curve, trying to avoid a one hundred and fifty
27:49
million dollar fine like Deutsche Bank got, decided to jettison
27:53
these clients. And while that's all fine and well, and
27:58
I get that they're in cover your ass and simply
28:01
trying to save face, what about all of the money
28:04
they moved for Epstein prior to that, What about all
28:07
of the money they moved for other money launderers prior
28:11
to that? They just get a pass on that. So
28:14
that means we all just get a pass on the
28:16
things that we have done in our in our past
28:19
if they're criminal, I mean for everybody, that's that's the
28:22
new rule, or only for the bankers. Later that year,
28:28
the bank said it would spend four billion dollars to
28:31
shore up its compliance operations, a process that included reviewing
28:35
the accounts of hundreds of clients and shedding many of them.
28:41
Too little, too late, And again, do we really know
28:46
that they followed through with all of that? These are
28:50
the only shit bad clients you guys have on. Sure,
28:52
I'm guessing you guys just woke up one day and
28:55
you had a complete reversal of opinion and you decided
28:59
that you're going to conduct your financial business squeaky clean
29:03
with nothing but good quality, hard earned money. Yeah, I'm
29:08
positive that's what occurred. Deutsche Bank, whose business is regulated
29:13
in New York, said this week that it has cooperated
29:16
with authorities and that it regretted bringing Epstein on as
29:20
a client. No, you don't. You regret getting caught Deutsche Bank,
29:24
home of the twenty six percent car finance rate. You
29:29
pieces of trash. The only thing you care about is
29:31
that you got caught. Don't try and gaslight anybody. Don't
29:35
try and act like you care. Don't try and act remorseful.
29:38
Now that's not the case. You're not remorseful because you
29:41
were in bed with Epstein. You're remorseful because you got nailed.
29:48
Although it acknowledged deficiencies and oversight of the FBMY and
29:53
Dance relationships, the bank said it found no intentional effort
29:57
to facilitate unlawful activity. It declined to comment for this article. Yeah,
30:02
of course it did so since this article has been out.
30:06
They got slapped with one hundred and fifty million dollars
30:09
fine the first time around, and now one hundred million
30:12
plus one hundred and thirty one hundred and thirty million
30:14
on the second go around. So we're talking two hundred
30:16
and eighty million dollars, a quarter of a million dollars
30:22
and some change, a quarter of a billion dollars and
30:25
some change. Excuse me, but yeah, there's no irregularities going
30:30
on here. You know. Everything that Deutsche Bank does is
30:33
on the up and up. Dance Ski flags Concerns about
30:38
dancek Bank, Denmark's biggest bank, centered on its Estonia unit.
30:43
New organizations, including the Organized Crime Corruption and Reporting Project,
30:48
wrote in twenty eighteen that the unit had helped the
30:51
rich Russians moved nearly a quarter trillion dollars from their
30:55
country over the course of a decade. Largely through an
31:01
largely through shell corporations. So there you go. The shell
31:05
corporation's popping up once again. And I'm pretty sure that
31:11
all of this stuff is going to be brought to
31:13
light from the subpoenas that Denise George has been firing
31:18
off from the Virgin Islands in her bunker. I wonder
31:21
if she's getting carpal tunnel from writing up all of
31:24
these subpoenas and sending them out because she's going ham folks.
31:30
Imagine if it turns out that the Attorney General of
31:34
the Virgin Islands, Denise George upstages the SDNY and the
31:39
vaunteered SDN, why and that's to get us and snatches
31:43
this case and gets prosecutions. That would be such an
31:48
enjoyable taste of irony. The bank acknowledged later that year
31:56
that many of those transactions should have been flagged as suspense.
32:01
JP Morgan stopped providing the Estonia unit access to the
32:04
US financial system in twenty thirteen, citing the high percentage
32:09
of client accounts domiciled outside the Baltic country. Deutsche Bank
32:14
continued providing banking services to Dance for another two years,
32:19
and this is why Deutsche Bank really doesn't have a
32:23
leg to stand on. Everybody else was bouncing, everybody else
32:27
was getting out of bed with people like this. But
32:30
Deutsche Bank, they came in to fill the gap, right.
32:33
They came in in the vacuum and said, Hey, look,
32:35
we're okay with money launderers, we're okay with human traffickers.
32:39
Come on, do business with us. Everything's great, And in fact,
32:44
we're gonna get you some nice IPOs to turn and
32:47
burn some good bank, some bank underwritten IPOs, so you
32:50
and your buddy Epstein can turn and burn them. Two
32:55
hundred and eighty million dollars is not enough fine for
32:57
these people. Let's go, let's get into the billion, and
33:00
how about some arrests. The Justice Department is investigating the
33:05
role played by Dansk's correspondent. Banks in the US, including
33:10
Deutsche Bank, people familiar with the matter have said, adding
33:14
that the authorities are also trying to understand JP Morgan's role. Yeah,
33:20
you want to know JP Morgan's role, how about you
33:22
start with Jess Staley over at Barclay's, a nice long
33:26
conversation over some tea and some crumpets. Perhaps because folks,
33:33
Jess Stay knows a lot more than he's letting on.
33:39
Deutsche Bank had a decade long relationship with FBme, which
33:43
is registered in Tanzania and based in Cyprus. In the
33:47
nineteen eighties, the small bank was a client of Bankers Trust,
33:51
which Deutsche Bank acquired the next decade. So we know
33:55
that Cyprus is a huge place for LLC's and Shell corporations.
34:00
Talked about that during the Finson files. And again another
34:03
reason why I added the Finson files and we did
34:06
all of that backwork and legwork, because when we get
34:09
to a point like we're at now, when we're discussing
34:12
the actual banks that were facilitating Jeffrey Epstein and his
34:16
criminal behavior, all of the terminology doesn't come as a surprise, then, right,
34:21
We're all very well and comfortable with this financial story
34:26
by now, considering all of the groundwork we have laid
34:31
leading up to this point. By two thousand and five,
34:36
Deutsche Bank had deemed FBme high on its risk scale,
34:40
and its monitoring systems were flagging suspicious transactions at a
34:44
rate of more than twice a week during some years,
34:47
according to the New York Regulator. And that's a lot.
34:50
Twice a week. I mean when I was working in
34:56
the sportsbook and we were dealing with so and stuff
35:00
like that. I would do maybe one every few months,
35:04
two a week. That's a huge clip. Although Deutsche Bank
35:11
admonished FBme at times over its practices and demanded more
35:15
information about its clients, the German bank continued doing business
35:19
with it. The regulator said, of course they did. It's
35:23
all about the money. Oh yeah, we're gonna punish you.
35:26
Wink wink, nudge nudge. We'll make it look like you're
35:28
being punished. Wink wink, nudge nudge. But in reality, just
35:31
keep doing what you're doing. Our bank accounts love it.
35:38
JP Morgan started doing business with FBme in the early
35:41
two thousands and quickly grew frustrated with its failure to
35:45
fully explain certain transactions. According to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News,
35:51
the banking giant was also wary of other practices at FBme,
35:55
such as offering whold mail services, in which banks allowed
36:00
clients to use the bank's address to limit paper trails.
36:03
According to those documents, oh yeah, that doesn't sound shady
36:07
or nothing. That sounds fantastic. Ah yeah, you guys want
36:10
to hide some money, Come on, come over here. We'll
36:12
use the mail here. We'll make sure everything's hidden. Nobody
36:14
will ever find the dime of it. But make sure you, folks,
36:18
make sure you're paying your taxes. Make sure you pay
36:20
every single dollar as they squeeze you. Deutsche Bank provided
36:27
banking services to FBme for five years after JP Morgan
36:31
stopped processing some six hundred and eighteen billion in all.
36:36
It ended the relationship in twenty fourteen after the US
36:40
Treasury labeled FBme a primary money laundering concern for its
36:45
alleged work with organized crime and terror groups, effectively freezing
36:50
it from the US financial system. FBme has disputed those allegations.
36:57
So you see the kind of people they're dealing with.
36:59
Organized crime, oligarchs, human traffickers, arms smugglers, arms dealers, I mean,
37:08
you name it. I'm sure if Adolph Hitler and Lennon
37:12
were alive, they'd have accounts at Deutsche Bank. The late Epstein,
37:19
for his part, was a longtime client of JP Morgan,
37:22
characterized inside the bank as a center of influence who
37:25
could help it attract lucrative clients, and there, my friends,
37:29
lives of the problem. Epstein was afforded all of this privilege.
37:33
He was afforded all of these great IPOs to turn
37:37
and burn that were underwritten because he was steering others
37:40
to this bank. So the question now becomes, who were
37:44
these others and are we ever going to have a
37:47
full accounting of the people that were in Epstein's sphere
37:51
that he directed to places like JP Morgan all these
37:55
years later and we haven't seen it yet, So hopefully
37:57
this investigation will prove to bear some fruit. Epstein stayed
38:05
with the bank well after two thousand and eight, when
38:07
he pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting minors for prostitution.
38:12
Epstein moved over to Deutsche Bank in twenty thirteen after
38:16
a banker who'd recently joined from JP Morgan persuaded executives
38:21
to bring him aboard. According to DFS, and you see
38:26
it here right, JP Morgan and Jess Staley continued to
38:31
do business with Jeffrey Epstein and Jess Staley not only
38:34
continued to do business with him on a private level
38:38
as far as you know a business relationship, they were
38:40
also personal friends, with Jess Staley even going down to
38:44
Epstein's island for a nice little visit. Oh he says
38:48
he brought his wife with him, so that's okay, though
38:51
these people are all sick, and the fact that Jess
38:54
Staley is still in that position over at Barclays, he
38:57
should really be thanking the coronavirus pandemic because it's the
39:02
only thing that has kept him in that position. In
39:04
my opinion, Epstein's legal troubles mounted again in twenty eighteen.
39:11
That November, the Miami Herald published a series of articles
39:15
cataloging allegations from women who said they had been abused
39:19
sexually by him as miners. Deutsche Bank notified Epstein in
39:23
December twenty eighteen that would be closing his accounts, and
39:28
as they say, folks, too little, too late. These financial
39:35
institutions have had a long run of screwing us over.
39:38
They've had a long run of nobody regulating them and
39:42
nobody taking a deeper look. Well, that run is over,
39:47
and hopefully with the new anti money laundering legislation that
39:51
has been passed and a new found interest in what
39:57
these banksters are really up to, I hope that moving
40:00
forward we're able to hold them accountable for their actions,
40:05
not just find them, but send some of these executives
40:09
that are involved in this shit well I'd like to
40:12
send some of these people to prison. If you'd like
40:15
to contact me, you can do that at Bobby Kapuci
40:17
at ProtonMail dot com. That's bo bb Y c ap
40:22
you Cci at ProtonMail dot com. You can also find
40:27
me on Twitter at Bobby underscore c ap you Cci.
40:33
All of the links that go at this episode can
40:36
be found in the description box. All right, folks, i'bsent
40:40
files in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and our case as
40:45
a whole. Well, today we're going to dive back in,
40:48
and it looks like Congress is ready to move on
40:51
some of these shell companies. Now, I've heard that time
40:55
and time again when it comes to Congress, I've heard
40:58
a lot of lip service from them throughout the years.
41:01
I've followed Congress very closely for the last two decades,
41:06
and if there has ever been a group of people
41:12
who like to talk without backing it up with action,
41:15
it most certainly is the United States Congress. So while
41:20
I hope that they're ready to go after shell companies
41:24
and get this money laundering under control, I'm in a
41:29
show me state, right, I don't believe it until they
41:33
do it. At this point, how can we believe anything
41:37
that's coming out of Congress or the Senate or anywhere
41:41
from any of the historical bastions of power. They have
41:47
done nothing but lie to us over and over and
41:50
over again. And I'm just talking about since nine to eleven,
41:55
never mind going back before then. But it's just been
41:58
a constant screwing of the American people by both sides
42:02
of the aisle, and I'm tired of it. So if
42:09
they're just going to talk about going after these companies,
42:11
if they're just gonna give us lip service about going
42:14
after these shell companies and ending money laundering, then they
42:17
should just shut up and continue with their partisan nonsense.
42:21
But if they're really ready to move into a phase
42:25
that includes action and tangible penalties for people involved, then
42:32
they most certainly will have my support. But again, we're
42:36
dealing with some people that are almost as bad as
42:39
these bankers, right, maybe in some cases obviously not even
42:42
maybe definitely in some cases worse than these bankers. So
42:47
it's we're at a point where we're staring down into
42:50
a pit of vipers and we're looking for one that's
42:53
not so poisonous to help us out. Pretty much, So
42:56
who knows maybe somebody in Congress is actually going going
43:00
to push this forward. Maybe somebody in Congress actually does
43:04
care about this stuff. But to be honest with you,
43:07
they've had all of these years to fix it. They
43:09
willed extreme power. They're the ones who write the laws,
43:13
and they have done nothing. Their inaction speaks volumes. Our
43:21
article today is from BuzzFeed News and it is part
43:25
of our finsin Files investigation. This will be part four
43:30
of the Fins and Files in regards to Jeffrey Epstein
43:35
and Gilaine Maxwell headline, Congress is close to ending anonymous
43:40
shell companies. This article was authored by Paul McLeod. After
43:48
years of inaction, Congress is looking to pass substantial reforms
43:52
of the financial system. The Fins and Files investigation spotlighted
43:56
the pivotal role of shell companies in moving dirty money.
43:59
Well it is I said from the jump that these
44:02
fence and files are This is what journalism should be, folks,
44:06
In my opinion, in my humble opinion, this is what
44:09
journalism should be. Finding a story like this and digging
44:13
in Michael Bulldog and chasing it down to wherever it
44:16
may end. Journalists shouldn't be part of the resistance journalists
44:21
shouldn't be pro party in power. Journalists should be pro
44:26
truth and getting to the bottom of things. Instead, we
44:30
see two separate realities form because the media wants to
44:34
carry water for one side or the other. And you
44:37
know who gets screwed then, folks us, that's who gets screwed.
44:41
And do you really think Congress would have been taking
44:44
this action if the fence and files didn't drop, if
44:47
the journalists, the brave investigative journalists who dug into this,
44:51
didn't shine a spotlight on it, do you really think
44:54
Congress would be taking action or would they be sitting
44:56
around playing grab ass? Still? I know what I think,
44:59
and it's definitely the grab ass option. For over a decade,
45:06
there have been calls in Congress to address shadowy corporate
45:09
entities known as shell companies that are considered a cornerstone
45:13
of fraud, corruption, and money laundering for over a decade.
45:17
Haunt just over a decade right there shows you the problem.
45:23
These congressmen and congresswomen and these lawmakers, they have used
45:27
these shell companies themselves. How do you become rich as
45:32
a congressman on that salary? Can anybody answer that question
45:35
for me? Well, I'll answer it for myself. It's because
45:39
you have many fingers in many pies. These people become
45:45
congressmen and senators and congresswomen because of the power. It's
45:49
not because they want to help people, all right. It's
45:52
not because they care about their constituents or their communities.
45:56
The vast majority of these people only care about increase
46:00
their power, and unless the spotlight is turned on an
46:03
issue like this, they'll ignore it because it benefits them
46:06
and their friends. That's just the cole heart reality of
46:10
if folks. People don't want to believe it, people don't
46:12
want to hear it. It's the truth. These companies help
46:18
unsavory characters and organizations hide wealth or use the proceeds
46:22
of crime to buy up legitimate assets, ranging from a
46:25
condo to an entire building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan,
46:30
and the US is one of the easiest jurisdictions in
46:33
the world for setting them up. How often did we
46:38
see Epstein involved in real estate? How much property did
46:41
he have, how many assets did he have? What else
46:44
was he involved in? How much of this stuff was
46:47
facilitated by the shitty laws that Congress has on the books?
46:51
All of it was so? Again, I ask you. How
46:55
long are you going to keep sending those incumbents back
46:58
to DC? You know me, I'm voting them all out.
47:03
That's where I'm at. I don't trust any of them.
47:05
I don't care what letter you have next to your name.
47:08
All you do is go to DC and play partisan politics,
47:11
rile up people that would never be riled up before,
47:14
and play a divisive game that is damaging the whole
47:18
entire system all because you people are power hungry. I
47:24
am sick of it. I am done with it, and
47:26
the only power that I have is to vote them out.
47:30
So that's what I'm doing on election day. I am
47:32
not voting for one single incumbent. Startingly, these entities can
47:40
require less disclosure than getting a library card. Imagine that, huh.
47:45
Imagine how easy it is to be a thief in
47:47
the United States of America or any other westernized country.
47:51
If you got some bucks and you got some connections,
47:53
well you can be a modern day thief still from
47:57
the people, not pay your taxes and just you know,
48:00
get on with it, because guess what, they're so called
48:05
polite society and we are literally nothing to them. That
48:10
means all of them, folks, all of your favorites, all
48:12
of these politicians you get down into hero worship for
48:16
they do not care about you. Understand that, Why don't
48:23
you write them a letter if you can't pay your
48:25
rent and see if any of them step up to
48:28
help you. It's just like Sonny said to see in
48:32
a Bronx tail about Mickey Mantle. It's Mickey Mantle going
48:35
to pay your rent. No, he's not. So kill the
48:37
hero worship because it's bad news, folks. And they pray,
48:44
They pray on your fear and on your anger, and
48:48
they rely on us being divided. Now, legislation that would
48:55
force disclosure of who owns a company registered in the
48:58
US has once again advanced in Congress. Its fate is uncertain,
49:02
but in her interested parties agree this is the strongest
49:05
chance yet for reforms to pass. So now I highly
49:09
suggest that we all call our congress people and senators
49:14
and everybody else and tell them that we want massive
49:18
reform in the financial sector. How did these people get
49:21
away without reforming shit after the meltdown in two thousand
49:24
and eight, two thousand and nine. How did they get
49:26
away with it? Oh? Easily, because Congress let them get
49:29
away with it. Nobody was held accountable. Ever, all of
49:33
these hot shot financial jerk offs, all of these scumbags
49:38
that inhabit Wall Street, none of them paid the price.
49:43
You know who paid the price? Me and you, Our
49:45
retirement plans, our dreams, our hopes, our futures all crushed
49:50
under their five thousand dollars foot heel, and nobody went
49:55
to jail. Well, now Congress has a chance to fix it.
50:00
The question is will they or will they continue to
50:04
let people like Jeffrey Epstein skate the system, launder money,
50:10
and use those laundered funds to facilitate their crimes. There
50:16
is a stark choice here of folks, and Congress needs
50:21
to do the right thing. The final push comes as
50:25
BuzzFeed News and the International Consortium of Investigated Journalists in
50:30
the Fins and Files investigation have exposed the vast amounts
50:33
of dirty money washing through the US economy and how
50:36
Shell companies help foster that flow. And you know, you
50:40
would think, right, you hear Shell companies and you're thinking criminals.
50:43
For me, Before I really dove into this, I thought
50:46
about Shell companies. I figured, you know, rich people obviously,
50:49
but I never knew the scope of what was going on.
50:52
In my own country, right, I was so focused on
50:55
other things, the Near East, meaning the Middle East. That
50:58
was where my whole entire focus was for the past
51:00
two decades. That's all I really focused on. And then
51:04
when I started to really zero in on what was
51:08
going on in my own backyard, I was just blown
51:11
away by how many shell companies are set up, how
51:14
many politicians, current and former are involved in this sort
51:18
of shit, and just how pervasive financial crimes are in
51:23
this country. It blew me away, folks, and it's time
51:27
to stop it. It is time for it to end.
51:29
We've discussed how bad and how harmful money laundering is
51:34
on the poorest amongst us, and I'm sure that's a
51:37
lot of our friends and family, right. Look, it's not
51:40
easy to get ahead if you're not born ahead, right,
51:43
It's possible in the United States. There's no doubt that
51:46
if you work hard in the United States and you
51:48
focus on you, and you make good decisions, you can
51:51
drag yourself up from nothing and become successful. I watched
51:55
my own father do it when I was a child.
51:57
We first moved to Las Vegas. My grandma was dying
52:00
of lung cancer. We had nothing. My dad had just
52:03
graduated from audio school. There was fifteen of us in
52:07
a one bedroom apartment, and I watched my pops get
52:10
up every single day four point thirty in the morning
52:13
and walk up to the Las Vegas Strip looking for
52:15
a job. And then finally he scored a good, good
52:19
gig and worked his way up and became a pretty
52:25
high powered person in the entertainment field in Las Vegas.
52:29
And I'm proud of him for that, right, But he
52:31
did that himself with no help. So it's definitely possible.
52:34
And there are stories of like that like that. I'm
52:36
sure all of us have them in our family for
52:39
the most part. But we can't let Congress get in
52:46
the way of that kind of stuff. We can't let
52:48
these laws stop people from achieving those sort of goals
52:53
and let these sort of money laundering schemes and plots
52:56
keep people in poverty. And we've seen how it works,
53:01
We've seen what money laundering does, and we have seen
53:04
the effects it has on the community as a whole.
53:10
I don't think people think about it. Not enough of
53:12
my colleagues do, said Democratic Senator Charad Brown. It's bigger
53:16
all the time, there's more money swashing around all the time,
53:20
and all kinds of nefarious ways, organized crime elections, Everything's
53:26
no doubt about it. Look, Sharrod Brown is one hundred
53:28
percent right. There is so much money swishing and swashing
53:32
and go and moving around that it is almost impossible
53:36
to track it, especially when you have the compliance divisions
53:42
of these institutions in on it, like we've seen with
53:45
some of the bigger situations with Jeffrey Epstein. So it
53:50
is up to Congress to put their foot down. But
53:52
how could Congress put their foot down if we have
53:55
Congress populated by bipedal serpents like Elaine Maxwell, people who
53:59
are writing laws so that they can avoid this kind
54:02
of shit. It is a never ending circle of madness.
54:09
You know, the wheel needs to be broken, not just
54:12
the spoke, but the whole entire wheel needs to be broken.
54:18
Senate Banking Committee Chair Mike Crapo and Brown, the ranking member,
54:22
co authored legislation that would force limited liability companies every
54:27
year to reveal their true beneficial ownership. The person who
54:31
controls the company owns at least twenty five percent of
54:34
it or receives economic benefits from the company's assets. Such
54:38
disclosures would make it harder to run these companies anonymously,
54:42
removing one of the reasons these companies are employed for
54:45
moving money around the globe. Look, we enough is enough?
54:50
All right with the anonymous ownership, And if I have to,
54:54
I mean, if you're driving an uber, you have to
54:56
go through all kinds of loopholes and get a tin
54:59
identify all sorts of shit. You mean to tell me
55:03
that if you're running one of these shell companies, nobody
55:05
has to know anything about it. There's no checks and balances,
55:09
there's no I mean, come on, you see, folks, how
55:13
the game is rigged, and you see how it's not
55:15
rigged in your favor. Those with power and wealth continue
55:19
to build power and wealth while you and I are
55:22
left to scrape by and we're forced and turned to
55:26
hate each other. That is the game that they play.
55:30
That is the game that they rely on, and that
55:32
is how their system stays intact by keeping us at
55:36
each other's throats with their bs nonsense on a regular basis. Well,
55:41
I'm not buying it. I'm not being gas lit by them.
55:43
And if they think that I'm gonna sit by and
55:46
keep quiet, they are absolutely in for a big old shock.
55:53
Ownership information would be shared with the Financial Crimes Enforcement
55:57
Network or FENCING, an agency within the Department of Treasury
56:01
that combat money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes.
56:06
Crepo's legislation would also require the Government Accountability Office to
56:11
study the availability of true beneficial ownership information for other
56:15
legal entities. Look, this is good stuff, right. If they
56:19
can get this through, If Brown and CREPO can move
56:22
this ball and get the other scuzzballs to sign on
56:26
to it, I think it's a good start, right. I'm
56:30
not a big fan of regulation for the most part,
56:32
especially over regulation. It's burdensome to business. But what these
56:37
people have proven is that they can't be trusted. It's
56:40
like having a child and you give them a little
56:42
leeway and then they sneak out. Well, now we know
56:46
you like to sneak out, so you're grounded. And that's
56:48
how it is with these institutions. They were given great
56:52
lateral ability to operate without any oversight basically, and they
56:57
screwed up. So now oversight and repercussions. Companies with over
57:04
twenty employees and at least five million annual sales, as
57:08
well as physical presence in the United States would be exempt.
57:11
Under the assumption they're legitimate businesses rather than shell companies.
57:16
The legislation also would take steps to improve how banks
57:19
communicate with finsen, require federal regulators to undergo training and
57:23
detecting money laundering, and establish a new fins in whistleblower program.
57:30
Ah back to the loopholes. Huh. Companies with over twenty
57:33
employees and at least five million annual sales. They're exempt though,
57:37
because there's the assumption that they're legitimate. That's probably because
57:41
they're fellow Congress people. Those are the kind of companies
57:43
that they own, right, so they got to have that
57:45
exemption slipped in there for them. So again we're right
57:48
back where we started. Crapo and Brown, this is just
57:51
lip serve as folks. This doesn't reach far enough. This
57:55
does not reach far enough at all. Don't get me wrong.
57:57
It's a good starting point. It's nice to see Congress
58:00
taking a look. But at the end of the day,
58:02
I'm tired of Congress quote unquote taking a look. How
58:05
about some action. Linda Lacewell, superintendent of the New York
58:11
Department of Financial Services, recently wrote in Law three p.
58:14
Sixty that the reports file to the federal government by
58:17
banks about suspicious financial activity are frequently riddled with the
58:22
names of anonymous shell companies that make it practically impossible
58:26
to determine the identity of the perpetrator. It basically negates
58:32
all of the safeguards. If you don't know who's in
58:35
control of the company, how can you follow the money.
58:37
How can you be sure that that money isn't being
58:40
used to, say, fund the sex trafficking operation. You can't
58:45
be sure, And that's part of it. They want that
58:47
plausible deniability, right, so they wrote these laws so these
58:50
people can stay anonymous. It is an absolute joke. In
58:56
that essay, prompted by the Fence and Files investigation, she
59:00
also wrote, therefore, as a first step, we must all
59:03
move to require disclosure of beneficial owners of corporations and
59:08
limited liability companies and financial transactions. Yes, one hundred percent,
59:14
I agree. There needs to be disclosure and it needs
59:18
to be complete. There can be no bs and around.
59:21
We can't be at This is not something to joke
59:23
around with, folks. This is literally them stealing our future
59:28
from us and then using those funds to commit the
59:33
most heinous crimes you could possibly imagine. Everything from genocide
59:37
to sex trafficking. Banks, law enforcement, human rights groups, labor unions,
59:44
and state attorneys generals are among the coalitions supporting the legislation.
59:49
Even the US Chamber of Commerces on board. But there
59:52
is one influential force pushing back small business now. I
59:57
am usually a champion of small business, mom and pop stores.
1:00:01
I shop there if I can. I you know, I
1:00:04
spend as much money possible at mom and pop stores.
1:00:08
But there has to be accountability here. I'm sorry. There
1:00:12
has to be regulation and accountability in this sector of
1:00:15
our lives because it is so crucial to how everything
1:00:18
else functions. It is literally the lifeblood of our society.
1:00:24
The difficulty is, in order to do the reporting that
1:00:26
we need to get past the shell companies, it requires
1:00:29
all of our legitimate, honest businesses to disclose lots of
1:00:33
information and do significant reporting, said Crapo, the Senate Banking
1:00:37
Community Community Chair. Well, why is that a big deal.
1:00:41
If these banks aren't doing anything illegal or untowards, then
1:00:46
they should have no problem reporting all of this stuff.
1:00:49
I know I had no problem filling out stars when
1:00:51
I was in a position that called for it. That's
1:00:54
my job. Like Bill Belichick, says, do your job. The
1:01:03
National Federation of Independent Business, the largest and most influential
1:01:07
small business group in the country, is leading the charge
1:01:10
to block the legislation. We just don't believe it's worth
1:01:13
criminalizing a new paperwork burden. It's a scary thing for
1:01:16
small business owners who don't have the time, resources or bandwidth,
1:01:20
said Kevin Cooleman, the group's vice president of Federal government Relations.
1:01:25
EH I don't know. That doesn't sit well with me.
1:01:28
You don't have the time or the resources to make
1:01:30
sure that there's no money laundering occurring, to make sure
1:01:33
that the lifeblood of the Western civilization is flowing with good,
1:01:38
clean money. I think that's something we should all be
1:01:41
concerned about and something we should all be putting resources
1:01:44
towards to stop. Coleman argues the legislation would inflict small
1:01:50
businesses with burdensome reporting obligations under threat of find your
1:01:54
jail time. The House legislation, authored BYTIVE Representative Carolyn Maloney,
1:02:00
outlines fines of up to ten thousand dollars and up
1:02:02
to three years in prison for owners of companies that
1:02:05
provide false information or refuse to comply. Coleman also raised
1:02:10
the possibility of hackers accessing the fins and data. Oh yeah,
1:02:14
of course that's it, right, Oh hackers, let me guess,
1:02:17
Gooseifer two point zero is gonna show up and hack
1:02:19
this too. Give me an absolute break with a hacker nonsense.
1:02:23
I am so tired of that bullshit. Okay, it's gotta
1:02:27
got hacked. Well, employ better defensive specialists when it comes
1:02:34
to your Internet and your your protection of people's information.
1:02:38
How about that invest a little bit more money. For
1:02:44
most legislation in Washington, it's obvious in advance whether it
1:02:47
will pass or not. But this is a rare case
1:02:50
where the legislation is close to the finish line and
1:02:53
no one knows what will happen. Usually we have an idea, right,
1:02:56
Usually there's some leaks we hear from one side or
1:02:59
the other. People are talking about the bills, and we
1:03:02
understand one way or the other what's going to occur.
1:03:05
That is something that policy wonks like myself are used
1:03:10
to seeing. But I really haven't heard much about this bill.
1:03:14
This is not a bill that has really been talked about. Obviously,
1:03:17
coronavirus and the election and all of that jazz is
1:03:21
eating up the news cycle. But this is a bill
1:03:23
that you think would be talked about a little bit. No,
1:03:27
to get a bill like this through Congress, you typically
1:03:30
need support from the four corners, the top Republican and
1:03:33
Democrat on both the Senate Banking Committee and the House
1:03:36
Financial Services Committee. The bill has support from only three
1:03:41
political aids and outside stakeholders, say Representative Patrick McHenry, the
1:03:47
ranking Republican on the House side, is the main force
1:03:50
of opposition. With him opposed, passage of the bill is
1:03:53
in jeopardy. I think it is probably fifty to fifty
1:03:57
Coolman said of the bill's chances. All right, so, Representative
1:04:00
Patrick McHenry, I highly doubt you're listening to this podcast,
1:04:04
But if you are, come on, man, get your shit together, bro.
1:04:07
This isn't a partisan issue. This isn't the time to
1:04:11
dig in, all right, Let's get some accountability for these banksters, dude,
1:04:16
Let's get these guys in line. You talk about how
1:04:19
you're a conservative and how you want to save money
1:04:21
and this that the other thing, But yet you're letting
1:04:25
these banks literally steal not only from your constituents but
1:04:28
from others. And you're gonna be the impediment holding this
1:04:32
bill up. Unacceptable, sir, unacceptable, and you should be challenged
1:04:38
on the floor to defend your position like the old days.
1:04:43
If I was in Congress, forget it, you folks would
1:04:46
be tuning into c SPAN on a regular basis because
1:04:48
I would be letting all of these idiots have it.
1:04:51
What an absolute clown show. The conclusion will not come
1:04:58
down to a dramatic vote on the floor of congre Rather,
1:05:01
it likely will be worked out in closed door negotiations.
1:05:04
Proponents want to include the legislation and the NDAA and
1:05:08
the NDAA National Defense or Authorization Act, a must pass
1:05:12
bill that funds the military. The Democrat controlled House included
1:05:17
it in its version of the NDAA. Nope, I don't
1:05:20
like that. I don't want to pork in. Let's make
1:05:22
the bills for what they are. Okay, Let's make this
1:05:25
a standalone bill and let it stand on its own merits,
1:05:28
and let these politicians hang themselves with their shit votes,
1:05:33
and then, like I talked about earlier, vote them out,
1:05:37
hold them accountable. There's people listening to this podcast from
1:05:41
all over the country. If all of us voted out
1:05:45
these incumbents and actually sent our neighbors to DC to
1:05:49
do the people's work. Do you really think we'd be
1:05:52
worse off. I know there's people out there. Oh, we
1:05:54
need lawyers and we need No, we don't, no, we don't. Okay,
1:05:58
where has that gotten us? It's time to try something new.
1:06:05
Crepo and Brown proposed their legislation, which is almost identical
1:06:08
to the House version, as an amendment to the Senate's NDAA,
1:06:12
but it was not adopted. Crepo said he believes there
1:06:16
is enough bipartisan support in the Senate to pass the legislation.
1:06:19
The problem, he said, was that so many Senators were
1:06:22
proposing controversial add ons to the NDAA that Senate leadership
1:06:27
ended up cutting almost all of them out, including the
1:06:30
money laundering provision, so as not to sync the overall bill.
1:06:34
That's why stuffing pork into these bills makes me crazy.
1:06:38
I don't want to go off on a policy wonk
1:06:40
tangent here, because that's not what you folks are listening for.
1:06:43
But this is right in my wheelhouse, this kind of thing,
1:06:47
This is what I went to school for political science,
1:06:50
and it just makes me mental when they shove pork
1:06:53
in these bills and they don't let them stand on
1:06:55
their own merit. It is a big problem in DC, folks,
1:06:59
and it's both sides. Enough with your pet projects. Can
1:07:02
we do the work of the people for once, please.
1:07:07
It was not wanting to kill the overall NDAA by
1:07:10
having it amended to death, said Crepo. There's a dozen
1:07:13
controversial amendments, and if you let one amendment go, then
1:07:15
the floodgates open. But with the House including money laundering
1:07:19
provisions in its version, Crepo said that gives congressional negotiators
1:07:23
an opening to include some version in the final bill
1:07:27
that will have to pass both chambers, the House and Senate.
1:07:30
They have already begun those negotiations. The next several weeks
1:07:34
will be critical with their dueling industries lobbying for their interests. Again,
1:07:38
lobbyists FK Street two. If I had my druthers, there
1:07:42
would be no more lobbyists. Send them all home. And
1:07:45
as far as our senators and congress people, it's obvious
1:07:48
that they can do their job remotely. So how about
1:07:51
they go back to their districts and start doing the
1:07:53
work of the people as opposed to the work of
1:07:56
the people that give them money. Banks are lobbying for
1:08:01
Crapo's legislation because they say they need help dwarding money laundering.
1:08:06
They are required to report clients questionable transactions by filing
1:08:10
suspicious activity reports or stars. To Finsen and the injuris
1:08:14
industry sees this as an onerous and expensive burden. Oh yeah,
1:08:18
real expensive. I'll tell you what. Why don't you just
1:08:21
use some of the money that you've taken from me
1:08:23
when I was younger with those predatory loans you like
1:08:25
to slap on people without a credit score or people
1:08:29
who might have bad credit. Why don't you take the
1:08:31
money from there? A bunch of f and crooks. The
1:08:38
Banking Policy Institute, whose members include both domestic banks and
1:08:41
large foreign banks doing business in the US, said these
1:08:44
financial institutions employ fourteen thousand people dedicated to compliance, and
1:08:49
it only takes a couple of those people in compliance
1:08:52
to be on the losing team right to be cheating.
1:08:57
A BPI survey from twenty seventeen member banks reviewed sixteen
1:09:01
million alerts and filed six hundred and forty thousand stars,
1:09:05
but they reported that only four percent of stars received
1:09:08
follow up inquiries from law enforcement. Banks also filed five
1:09:12
point two million currency transaction reports, which law enforcement followed
1:09:17
up less than half of one percent of the time,
1:09:20
according to BPI. In other words, folks in language, we
1:09:24
can explain, they let these people do whatever they want,
1:09:28
no oversight, and the sars are a joke pretty much
1:09:31
what they're saying. Forcing companies to disclose their true beneficial
1:09:36
ownership was first proposed in Congress back in two thousand
1:09:40
and eight. It's gone through different versions since then. Earlier
1:09:44
proposals would have forced companies to disclose their own ownership publicly,
1:09:48
but both the House and Senate versions of the bill
1:09:50
would only require disclosure. To Finson, well, that's interesting that
1:09:54
it came up in two thousand. Back in two thousand
1:09:57
and eight, after Obama won, he had the House, US
1:10:00
and the Senate plus the presidency. I really wonder why
1:10:03
they didn't shove it through then they had the power
1:10:05
to do so. Could it be that some of the
1:10:08
senators and congress people were benefiting from it so they
1:10:11
didn't bother hm. I wonder the politically powerful Koch family
1:10:17
previously opposed the legislation and had bobbied Congress to make changes. Shocking.
1:10:22
The Koch family a bunch of scumbags who have money
1:10:26
to burn, and they inject themselves into politics on a
1:10:30
regular basis. The Rights version of George Soros, basically in
1:10:37
response the Senate version, was massage to expand exemptions for
1:10:41
nonprofit organizations nonprofit organizations again right, which are used as
1:10:46
part of the Koch's political operations. The Kochs have now
1:10:50
dropped their objections to the legislation, according to Congressional Aids
1:10:53
with knowledge of the talks, I wonder how they were
1:10:55
massaged into doing that. What sort of backroom deals did
1:10:59
they make with these console. This type of bipartisan cooperation
1:11:03
doesn't come around every day, said BPI head of Government
1:11:07
Affairs Mike Lee, and represents years of stakeholders negotiations and scrutiny. Well,
1:11:14
look again, it doesn't go far enough, it's not strong enough,
1:11:19
but at least it's something. It's a starting point, it
1:11:22
gives it gives us a place to start and to
1:11:25
point and say to politicians who want our vote, Look,
1:11:29
this is important to us. This money laundering issue is
1:11:32
important to us. The fact that Jeffrey Epstein was able
1:11:35
to run a sex trafficking ring where he trafficked children
1:11:39
using this system and this money is important to us,
1:11:43
and you must fix it. That is why we're sending
1:11:47
you to DC, fix this, protect our children. Very basic
1:11:52
shit here, and yet they have failed for decades. So, folks,
1:11:57
I ask you, what are you going to do election day?
1:12:01
Are you going to vote for the same old shit,
1:12:04
the same old garbage, or are you going to make
1:12:08
a change. And I'm not talking about making a change
1:12:13
from R to D or D to R. I'm talking
1:12:16
about voting for a people who actually care. And the
1:12:21
only way that's ever going to happen is if we
1:12:26
force the issue. No more career politicians, no more political class.
1:12:33
If you're going to Washington, DC, you should be going
1:12:37
there to do the people's work, not enrich yourself, and
1:12:41
certainly not to protect people like Jeffrey Epstein. If you
1:12:48
like to contact me, you can do that at Bobby
1:12:50
Kapucci at ProtonMail dot com. That's bo B b Y
1:12:54
c ap U c CI at protonmeil dot com. You
1:12:58
can also find me on Twitter at b O B
1:13:01
B Y underscore c A p U c c I.
1:13:05
I'm