Well, in that case the American Express Bank International banker, Antonio Giraldi, was prosecuted for money laundering for a Mexican customer of his, who turned out to be a money launderer for the Mexican drug cartel of Juan Garcia Abrego. A witness who testified against him, in fact, as a star witness for the government, was a woman named Amy Elliot, who was a long-time private banker for Citibank in New York and the head of the Mexico private banking team for that bank. She testified about the procedures that her bank follows in scrutinizing a customer and his or her sources of funds before the bank will conduct transactions for that customer. She testified that she and her bank follow a meticulous list of steps and safeguards before engaging in transactions for new customers. Banks are supposed to follow Know Your Customer standards.
Private banking is a very lucrative sector of banking in the United States and around the world.
So that typically excludes a large array of banking customers and puts into the private banking area only those customers who have very, very high net worths or a lot of money to transact through the bank. Look, drug trafficking is driven by one thing and one thing only, money. The amounts are staggering. So the amount of money is astounding. The profits are astounding.