[Quote]:

Lax controls at Europe’s largest bank, HSBC, allowed Mexican drug cartels to launder billions of dollars through its US operations, an investigation by the US senate has found.

The extensive report on London-based HSBC Holdings PLC by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations also says US regulators knew the bank had a poor system to detect problems but failed to take action.

HSBC executives brushed off complaints from other bank employees, so that the problems persisted for eight years, the report says.

In addition, some HSBC bank affiliates skirted US government bans against financial transactions with Iran and other countries, according to the report.