One of the biggest banks in the UK, Standard Chartered, escaped prosecution from the US Department of Justice in 2012 thanks to intervention on the bank’s behalf by Lord Cameron’s administration.
According to newly filed court documents in New York, the bank transacted hundreds of transactions totaling over $100 billion in violation of Iranian sanctions between 2008 and 2013.
An independent expert has discovered $9.6 billion in foreign exchange transactions with individuals and companies that the US government has identified as providing support to “terror groups,” including the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda.
The bank issued a statement in which it refuted the assertions made by the whistleblowers, claiming that US authorities had “thoroughly discredited” their earlier accusations.
Sanctions violated
The public accused the Central Bank of Iran and other sanctioned entities of transferring billions of dollars through its New York branch by using fraudulent transaction data from Standard Chartered on Swift, an international payment system used by thousands of financial institutions.
However, George Osborne, the chancellor in Lord Cameron’s administration at the time, surreptitiously stepped in to support the bank in September 2012.
The US Department of Justice made the decision not to pursue the bank three months later.
The foreign exchange transactions mentioned in the court documents have not yet surfaced, and there is no indication that Lord Cameron or Mr. Osborne.
