Western Union fined $586 million for colluding with organized crime

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Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/23/western-union-fined-586-milli.html

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I’m sure Drumpf and the TGOP will overturn the conviction and give the money back cause job creators!

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That might explain why I don’t seem to have spotted Western Union in spam messages lately, and why all the ransomware is enthusiastically plugging Moneypak.

I suppose that means Moneypak must eventually be destined for a similar fate – and that one way or another, we can expect something like Bitcoin to endure.

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I’m thinking that this is going to figure in Donald Trumps fucking wall.

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Western Union fined $586 million for colluding canoodling with organized crime

Fixed it. There was probably at least tongue involved.

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in this case, it seems appropriate for the government seize the assets of the CEO of Western Union, Hikmet Ersek, until he can prove that his $8.5 million salary didn’t depend on Western Union’s admitted criminal activities.

Ha, that’s hilarious. Dream on! This fine is a hangover from the Obama administration, which absolutely refused to punish a high-level white-collar Wall Street criminal. Thanks, Obummer.

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hmm, so how much did they make doing this? Any bets that it was much more than the fine making this just another line item in the cost of doing business?

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I use Kriegerrands.

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But it IS Obama’s team that did this!

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Yeah, it would seem to be a no brainer to require that all fines for corporate malfeasance be, at a minimum, equal or greater than the profits made engaging in the prohibited activity.

That it isn’t set up that way is one of the things that is utterly incomprehensible, until you realize that (despite libertarian complaints about burdensome regulations) the entire regulatory system has been set up to inconvenience rogue businesses as little as possible.

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It’s illuminating that neither the original article nor anyone’s responses have mentioned more severe punishment.

I could rant at length about the fact that many people’s lives are destroyed by this kind of fraud. This has to be among the primary causes of income inequality in our country. Ridiculously huge corporations profiting from the ransacking of those with poor judgement, impaired reasoning or just bad luck.

But then it occurs to me that the same thing is about to get rolling in multiple branches of our government on an unimaginable scale…

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the fine is about the net income of half a year, overall not only peanuts.

but I fear this was an exceptional outlier and not some kind of new trend.

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Not only that, but the corporate tax and regulation structure is designed so all taxes and fines are passed onto the customer and lower level employees.

It costs the people who make these decisions and benefit from them nothing.

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Well, the financial institutions are much more brazen about this nowadays, and under project orange blossom, they’re sure to revert to ‘who gives a fuck!’ mode.

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Sure sounds like criminal activity… and, again, no criminal charges.

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That sounds like great customer service to me.

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in another topic another commenter wrote:

Is this a new trend or something?

edit: actually I remember doing this too. On a bb report of deadly police violence I asked something to the effect of “well what do you Americans have the death penalty for if not for those cops”. Sad!

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To big to jail.

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In other words, punish people of different economic backgrounds differently?

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Sure that’s the way America works, If it was a couple of black guys running a lottery off the corner of Colfax and Colorado in Denver they would do hard time. But these rich f#@ks commit fraud for millions and only pay a fraction of what they made off of the scam they ran. The fee’s they charged these poor people were most likely ridiculous as well. The double standard must end. We deserve better. We’re lesser than no one regardless of what’s in their bank account. The rich think it’s ok if they do what they want, but we can’t? We’re calling bullshit. And the time for change is upon us. We don’t want to make America great again. We want to make America Great Finally! And you’re going to hear from us all. And you won’t have to listen very hard. It’s already begun, over a million people all over the world stood up and said we’ve had enough of your one sided bullshit. And you’ll continue to hear the message. Whether you want to or not. We will tell you and show you and make you do the right thing come hell or high water. We’re to strong to fail. So buckle up, You’re not going to make us any more miserable than we are going to make you. You better do the right things!

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