. . . . See # 29 .
Thanks maggief.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/business/18launder.html
Wachovia and U.S. Settle a Money Laundering Case
By REUTERS
Published: March 17, 2010
MIAMI (Reuters) — The Wachovia Bank, a unit of Wells Fargo & Company, has agreed to pay $160 million to settle accusations that it laundered Mexican drug money.
Under the agreement, Wachovia will forfeit $110 million, representing the proceeds of illegal narcotics sales that were laundered through the bank, the United States attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida said.
The bank will pay an additional $50 million fine to the Treasury.
(snip)
//
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02E1D61E3BF933A25754C0A96E9C8B63&pagewanted=all
Wachovia hires a Treasury insider to lift it out of its banking woes
By Eric Dash
Published: July 10, 2008
From his perch inside the Treasury Department, Robert Steel has wrestled with the troubles plaguing America’s financial industry. Now he will confront those problems up close at the Wachovia Corporation, one of the nation’s largest banks.
On Wednesday, Wachovia ended its six-week search for a new leader when it named Steel, the under secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance, as its chief executive.
(snip)
Steel, a former vice chairman at Goldman Sachs, played a crucial role in formulating the Bush administration’s response to the running crisis in the mortgage markets. He also championed a controversial plan by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr., a colleague at Goldman, to overhaul the financial industry’s regulatory apparatus.
(snip)
//
http://freerepublic.info/focus/f-news/1965976/posts
Duke bolsters legal team in fighting lawsuit (Duke Hires Jamie Gorelick)
The Herald-Sun (Durham) ^ | Feb 6, 2008 | By Ray Gronberg
Posted on Wednesday, February 06, 2008 1:14:50 PM by Ken H
DURHAM — Duke University has added a former deputy attorney general of the United States to the legal team that will defend it against a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed by three members of the 2005-06 men’s lacrosse team.
Court papers filed this week indicate that Washington, D.C., attorney Jamie Gorelick will assist two Greensboro litigators in representing the school.
They’re also the attorneys of record for the Duke University Police Department, Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Steel, school President Richard Brodhead and numerous other university officials.
(snip)
//
wiki:
Robert King “Bob” Steel (b. August 3, 1951) is an American business leader and an expert on financial institutions and markets. In June 2010, he was named Deputy Mayor for Economic Development by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Previously, he had served as Under Secretary for Domestic Finance of the United States Treasury, as the last president and CEO of Wachovia Corporation, and as vice chair of Goldman Sachs.
(snip)
U.S. Treasury, 2006–08 ...
Wachovia/Wells Fargo, 2008–2010 ...
He is also a member of the Pew Charitable Trusts Task Force on Financial Reform, which advises the United States Congress on critical financial reform issues. In December 2009, he testified before the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. House and Senate regarding financial reform.[40] He is also a member of The FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion (ComE-IN), which focuses on how to improve underserved and low- and moderate-income consumers’ access to the financial mainstream.[41]
Although Steel was appointed to his Treasury post by a Republican president, he does not regard himself as an ideologue, and has been occasionally criticized for his political independence. For example, although Steel hosted fundraisers at his home for John McCain,[5] columnist Bob Novak complained that Steel is “no Republican,” citing that he had worked with Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin at Goldman Sachs and made campaign donations in 2002 to Democrats from his home state of North Carolina.[42]
Ping to Robert K. Steel, former Chairman of the Duke Board of Trustees, connection ... post #129.
. . . . See # 29 .
Thanks maggief.
American Action Network, 2010–present
In 2010, Steel became a founding member of the Advisory Board of the American Action Network, a group devoted to developing and marketing conservative ideas. The group was described by the New York Times as a "center-right version of the Center for American Progress."
Wikipedia
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Robert King "Bob" Steel
To abbreviate (really not abbreviated at all and overlaps with maggief's post): I was intending to gather a chronology and got over zealous with some interesting details:
Steel received his undergraduate degree from Duke in 1973, majoring in history and political science. He received his Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago in 1984.
Steel spent nearly 30 years at Goldman Sachs, rising to vice chair of the firm. He joined the Chicago office in 1976 and served as that office's co-head of institutional sales.
Goldman Sachs, 1976–2004
Barclays Bank, 2005–06
U.S. Treasury, 2006–08
Steel was appointed Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the United States Department of the Treasury on October 10, 2006 and served until July 9, 2008.
In March 2007, Steel testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on reform of the housing Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs)
In April 2008, Steel testified before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee regarding the rescue of Bear Stearns. Steel explained that although the Treasury had believed that the rescue of Bear Stearns was necessary, it had encouraged a low sale price so as not to encourage risky behavior by other large institutions.[20]
Wachovia/Wells Fargo, July, 2008–2010
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Steel certainly seems to be able to skirt trouble, even when under suspicion:
1) Also during Steel's term, the Duke campus experienced the false-rape charge known as the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case. Steel was criticized for supporting the university's president and asking that the legal proceedings take their course.[32]
When the charges were dismissed, Steel said the players "deserve our respect for the honorable way they have conducted themselves during this long legal ordeal .... Much as we wish that these three young men...could have been spared the agony of the past year, we believe that it was essential for the university to defer to the criminal justice system."[33]
In a suit by the lacrosse players, Steel is alleged to have helped suppress evidence of innocence to protect Duke's image, ordering Duke police to falsify their records to make the players appear more guilty, and explaining, "Sometimes good people have to suffer for the good of the organization".
["helped suppress evidence" and "ordering Duke police to falsify their records"--- What became of those charges?]
2) On July 9, 2008, Steel was named president and CEO of Wachovia.[6] Although Steel's predecessor, G. Kennedy Thompson had been criticized for exposing the firm to high-risk mortgages,[7] Steel hoped to put the company on firm footing until it failed in the Fall 2008 crisis. He bought one million shares of Wachovia stock on the open market and bought a house in Charlotte.[8] He also turned down a bonus he was due to receive.[9]
Steel was adamant that Wachovia would stay independent. However, by September 2008, market conditions had deteriorated severely. On September 26, Wachovia lost almost one percent of its deposits, leading regulators to force Wachovia to put itself up for sale.[10] After an initial deal with Citigroup for $1/share,[11] Steel and the Wachovia board accepted an offer to merge with Wells Fargo for $7/share.[12] (Wells Fargo would be purchasing 100% of Wachovia; .... The arrangement made Wells Fargo the second-largest retail brokerage in the United States.
In January 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating claims Steel made about the future of the bank before it started talks about a potential merger.
Following the merger, Steel was invited to join the board of Wells Fargo and served on the firm's credit and finance committees.[15] In June 2010, upon being appointed Deputy Mayor for Economic Development of New York City, Steel resigned his seat on the Wells Fargo board.[16]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Wachovia drug-money laundering investigation spanned the years 2004-2007, and Steel presided over the settlement as CEO of Wachovia (2008-2010):
In April 2008 Wachovia was also investigated by United States federal prosecutors as part of a probe into drug money laundering by Mexican and Colombian money-transferring firms. The investigation of the alleged laundering also included other large U.S. banks.[69]
Wells Fargo has since admitted that its Wachovia unit was involved in money laundering for drug traffickers.[70] It allowed money to be transferred in and out of casas de cambio, without proper due diligence, in violation of the Bank Secrecy Act. In March 2010 Wachovia agreed to pay a $160 million dollar fine for involvement in Mexican drug cartel money laundering that could total up to $420 billion dollars.[71] Said Jeffrey Sloman, the chief US prosecutor in the case, "Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations."[72]
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Just prior to Steel joing Wachovia as CEO, Wachovia settled another large lawsuit in April 2008:
A May 2007 New York Times article described Wachovia's negligence in screening or taking action against companies connected to identity theft.[67] These companies used stolen identities to remove funds from personal Wachovia bank accounts via unsigned checks. The article goes on to say "In all, Wachovia accepted $142 million of unsigned checks from companies that made unauthorized withdrawals from thousands of accounts, federal prosecutors say.
Wachovia collected millions of dollars in fees from those companies, even as it failed to act on warnings, according to records." Furthermore, the article adds "In a lawsuit filed last year, the United States attorney in Philadelphia said Wachovia received thousands of warnings that it was processing fraudulent checks, but ignored them."
On April 25, 2008, Wachovia agreed to pay up to $144 million to end the investigation without admitting wrongdoing.[68] The investigation found that Wachovia had failed to conduct suitable due diligence, and that it would have discovered the thefts if it had followed normal procedures. The penalty is one of the largest ever demanded by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
SOURCES from Wikipedia: