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Barclay’s Agrees to Pay $298 Million for Evading U.S. Sanctions
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(August 18, 2010 - Wednesday) - The London-based Barclays Bank has agreed to pay $298 million to settle criminal charges for helping banks in Iran, Cuba, Libya, Mayanmar, and Sudan evade U.S. economic sanctions. See the WSJ article here.
"According to prosecutors, bank employees deleted and changed payment messages referencing the banned countries, routed some payments through an internal account so they would look like they were coming from England, and sent others back to the senders with a fax coversheet reading, “Payments to U.S.A. must NOT contain the word listed below.”
Prosecutors say that Barclay’s even developed internal instruction manuals to process payments from foreign banks into the U.S. and avoid detection by authorities.
An internal Barclay’s review found $500 million in payments were processed from countries that had been sanction by the U.S.
If Barclay’s fulfills all of its obligations in the deal the charges will be dismissed.
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