Articles by Ed Vulliamy
We found 6 results.
The Man Who Exposed the Lie of the War on Drugs
Ed Vulliamy – The Guardian,
4 Jan 2016
“The City of London is a far more important centre for laundering criminal money than the Cayman Islands.” Roberto Saviano already lives under armed guard after writing about the Neapolitan mafia. Now he is determined to uncover capitalism’s complicity with the narco-lords of South America.
→ read full articleGlobal Banks Are the Financial Services Wing of the Drug Cartels
Ed Vulliamy – The Guardian,
23 Jul 2012
“Steal a little,” wrote Bob Dylan, “they throw you in jail; steal a lot and they make you a king.” These days, he might recraft the line to read: deal a little dope, they throw you in jail; launder the narco billions, they’ll make you apologise to the US Senate.
→ read full articleWestern Banks ‘Reaping Billions from Colombian Cocaine Trade’
Ed Vulliamy – Information Clearing House,
11 Jun 2012
While cocaine production ravages countries in Central America, consumers in the US and Europe are helping developed economies grow rich from the profits, a study claims. “It’s taboo to go after the big banks,” added Mejía. “It’s political suicide in this economic climate, because the amounts of money recycled are so high.”
→ read full articleFormer US Chief Prosecutor Condemns ‘Law-Free Zone’ Of Guantánamo
Ed Vulliamy in New York – The Guardian,
7 Nov 2011
The former chief prosecutor for the US government at Guantánamo Bay has accused the administration he served of operating a “law-free zone” there, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the order to establish the detention camp on Cuba. Retired air force colonel Morris Davis resigned in October 2007 in protest against interrogation methods at Guantánamo, and has made his remarks in the lead-up to 13 November, the anniversary of President George W Bush’s executive order setting up military commissions to try terrorist suspects.
→ read full articleHow A Big US Bank Laundered Billions from Mexico’s Murderous Drug Gangs
Ed Vulliamy – The Observer,
16 May 2011
As the violence spread, billions of dollars of cartel cash began to seep into the global financial system. But a special investigation by the Observer reveals how the increasingly frantic warnings of one London whistleblower were ignored. “For the time period of 1 May 2004 through 31 May 2007, Wachovia processed at least $$373.6bn in CDCs, $4.7bn in bulk cash” – a total of more than $378.3bn, a sum that dwarfs the budgets debated by US state and UK local authorities to provide services to citizens. The document gives a fascinating insight into how the laundering of drug money works.
→ read full articleHow a Big US Bank Laundered Billions from Mexico’s Murderous Drug Gangs
Ed Vulliamy - The Observer,
11 Apr 2011
[Wachovia] Bank paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a mere $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine… and for failing to apply the proper anti-laundering strictures to the transfer of $378.4bn – a sum equivalent to one-third of Mexico’s gross national product – into dollar accounts from so-called casas de cambio (CDCs) in Mexico, currency exchange houses with which the bank did business. It is in the clear now.
→ read full article