too big to be imprisoned

Around the world, HSBC markets itself as the “global local bank,” the welcome face of business and personal finance. Yet, a decade ago, the same bank was slapped with a record $1.9 billion U.S. fine for facilitating money laundering for “narcotics traffickers and rogue states.” How did the “global local bank” enable Mexico’s largest drug cartel and the world’s largest drug trafficking organization to launder money through the bank’s branch network and systems? How did a bank that boasts that “we are committed to helping protect the global financial system on which millions of people depend, by only dealing with clients who meet our high standards of transparency,” manage to facilitate the business of Mexico’s richest drug lord? And how did a bank that was recently ranked as “one of the world’s best-run institutions” in 2002 become so deeply entangled with such a criminal, with one of the world’s most brutal cartels? "Too Big to Jail" is an extraordinary story, brilliantly told by author, commentator, and former editor of The Independent, Chris Blackhurst. It begins in Hong Kong and stretches through London, Washington, the Cayman Islands, and Mexico, where HSBC saw an opportunity to become the world's largest bank, and El Chapo seized the opportunity to fuel his criminal empire by laundering drug proceeds through the bank. The book brings together an extraordinary cast of politicians, bankers, drug traffickers, FBI agents, and whistleblowers, and asks: What is the price of greed? Who is responsible for policing the global financial system? Why has not a single person been jailed for facilitating the criminal expansion of a global drug empire? Are some companies now so big that they are above the law?