Major Banks Have Allowed Terrorism To Flourish

Suspicious Activity is an epic drama of intrigue, suspense, thrills, and legal combat—torn out of today’s headlines. “The purpose of the lawsuit is to fully expose the bank’s willing support to groups that are killing Americans—and others—overseas.” This announcement by attorney Nicholas “Deke” Deketomis sets up the gladiatorial arena between Big Banking and a team of well-meaning activist lawyers. Farron Cousins is joined by Mike Papantonio, along with attorney Chris Paulos, to discuss Pap’s new book, “Suspicious Activity,” which is a continuation of his Law and Disorder series.

Order a copy of Mike Papantonio's new book at

Check out our merch by visiting our store

Subscribe to our podcast

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Unfortunately, banks are in a position to actually prevent terrorism and have made and taken steps where they have failed their duty, essentially. And the title of Suspicious Activity refers to one of the obligations that banks have to report suspicious activity of transactions that are flowing through their banks and through their correspondent banking accounts. And what we have seen time and time again, is banks actually taking affirmative steps to not report that suspicious activity, be willfully blind to it, and allow nefarious organizations, terrorist organizations, drug cartels and others to bank at their banks as customers and have beneficial ownership in accounts, and that goes unreported. And in some situations, these banks have actually established departments within those banks to specifically handle what they refer to as high risk customers, and to make sure that their transactions aren't being flagged as suspicious so that regulators and the FBI and other, you know, the Department of Justice are able to prosecute them. So they have not only failed their duty, but they are now facilitating these types of actors and accessing funds needed for their illicit activities.

And there's a good reason for that, right? You talk about these fines and a hundred million here, 500 million there, billions of dollars per year are going through these banks from these organizations. So, just so everyone is aware, this is not just one or two banks handling for one or two people. This is a well organized business for these individuals that carry out these attacks. Terrorism is a business and they run it like a business.

It absolutely is. By the time the money comes out the other side, after it's been laundered and washed by the bank, by the time the bank takes these transactions and they put distance between the dirty money and these complex layers of bank instruments, by the time that's all over, you have organizations like Hamas that are able to pay for really sophisticated IEDs, for example. How do they go about doing that? Well, they have to have money to do it. In Chris's case that were handled for this law firm, he was able to, we're actually able to trace where did the money, where was it washed, what bank washed it? Why did it end up in this part of Afghanistan or Iraq? We can follow that all the way to the place that it killed somebody. And it's done, there's, we would like to think that it's rare. It's been going on for decades. And organizations like HSBC and Credit Suisse and Barclays and Deutsche Bank have allowed it to happen.

As a matter of fact, even after this company was hit for $1.9 billion, HSBC, they then jumped in again and the Guardian caught them doing exactly the same thing, this non-disclosure of suspicious activity, and to the tune of $4.2 billion. So the point is, what does it take to make them stop? These books that I write are, they're a way for the public to, you can take a book, lay on a beach, read a good story, and at the same time, learn things that you've never heard before. Most people would never even dream that the drug cartels, for example, are getting all their money from, they're washing all their money in banks, like I'm just naming to you. It's so, it's down to such a science that the Mexican drug cartels actually use boxes that are specifically.