A Banker’s World, from Washington to Zurich to Joburg
But Blatter’s correct: the investigation does indeed smell, as does much else coming from the US Justice Department, because if there is anywhere deserving of corporate corruption probes to the extent of the FIFA investigation, it is Washington itself. Lynch is an especially dubious prosecutor, given her prior role in covering up the US banking system’s corruption by neglecting to pursue criminal charges against HSBC over money laundering associated with Mexican drugs or its Swiss subsidiary’s assistance to wealthy US residents’ illegal tax-dodging.
Manipulation of currencies is another reflection of the way the world’s bankers loot the world, cheating even the City of London and Wall Street on interest rates and currency deals. The Washington model of ‘justice’ is to charge bankers a fine for such crimes, so that no one is jailed, and then banks pass the bill back to their customers. The game continues.
In the same spirit, last week, South Africa’s Competition Commission gathered sufficient evidence of wrongdoing to allege that banks including BNP Paribas, Barclays, JP Morgan, Investec and Standard Chartered colluded to synchronize currency trading to rip off South Africans. But given prevailing power relations, you can safely bet no one will go to jail and at best a tokenistic fine will be levied.
Last Wednesday, the Swiss security forces were fully cooperative in arresting seven FIFA elites (though not Blatter) in a luxury Zurich hotel at Washington’s request. Yet it is no secret, either, that Swiss banks are even more cooperative when it comes to assisting African dictators and multinational corporations like locally-headquartered Glencore, which was founded by the infamous apartheid ally Marc Rich (who fled prosecution in the US and was later pardoned by Bill Clinton in as his last presidential act in 2001). Rich’s protégé is Ivan Glasenberg, a Johannesburg-born self-made man who has become South Africa’s richest citizen, worth at least $5 billion.
But just as with Rich, who busted oil sanctions to aid apartheid, it’s partly ill-begotten wealth. As Mbeki’s report puts it, “the IFF risks inherent in a commodity trade with Switzerland will be substantially higher than in the equivalent transaction with Sweden” because of Swiss corruption, and he even includes mention of how the world’s largest commodity trader, Swiss-based Glencore, did various dubious deals to minimize taxation in South Africa, from where a large share of its profits are sourced. Mbeki was too frightened to mention the name Glencore, though.