HSBC 'allowed money laundering by drug gangs' - US Senate

A US Senate investigation has uncovered how a "pervasively polluted" culture at HSBC and lax controls left it open to being used to launder dirty money from around the world.

The report into Europe's largest bank, which was released ahead of a Senate hearing taking place later today, says large sums of Mexican drug money almost certainly passed through the bank. Suspicious funds from Syria, the Cayman Islands, Iran and Saudi Arabia also moved through the institution. "The culture at HSBC was pervasively polluted for a long time," said Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a Congressional watchdog panel that issued the report. The year-long inquiry, which included a review of 1.4 million documents and int...