In 2012, a permanent sub-committee of the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs published a 300-page report on the failings of HSBC bank which, according to a BBC report, led to it being used as a conduit ‘for drug kingpins and rogue nations’ (BBC, 2012). The Committee's investigation and subsequent report led to the bank being fined ‘almost $2bn for failing to stop criminals using its systems to launder money’.

Alongside circumventing US laws outlawing trade with Iran, Burma and North Korea, it was the Mexican subsidiary of HSBC (HBMX) that was responsible for laundering money from Mexican drug cartels. Between 2007 and 2008 it was estimated that HBMX shipped $7bn to HSBC's US operation, more than any other HSBC affiliate. This was despite the fact that ‘Mexican and US authorities expressed concern that drug traffickers were able to circumvent the anti-money laundering controls at US banks by transporting US dollars to Mexico, and then using HBMX to transfer it to the US’ (BBC, 2012).

The BBC report went on to state that the Senate Committee reported that high-profile clients involved in drug trafficking, the bank had had millions of dollars of suspicious bulk traveller's cheques and a resistance to closing accounts that were linked to suspicious activity. The US arm of HSBC (HBUS) nevertheless classed Mexico as a ‘low-risk’ country and, as a consequence, did not adequately track its transfers and other dealings. In reality, as the Committee noted, ‘it had inadequate money laundering controls’ in spite of the fact that HBMX was operating in a country ‘under siege from drug crime, violence and money laundering’ (BBC, 2012).

The case of HSBC is revealing. It is unusual in that it was brought widely to the attention of the public. In other words, it was an example where the criminal activities of the powerful become newsworthy.

Revisiting the dark figure of crime

A key lesson from the criminological literature – and one that is widely acknowledged – is that the media have a significant role in creating crime and for current purposes they have systematically misrepresented the nature of criminality. Reinarman (1997, p101) commented that the ‘mass media has engaged in … the routinization of caricature – rhetorically recrafting worst cases into typical cases and the episodic into the epidemic’.