Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland pleaded guilty to conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros exchanged in the $5 trillion FX spot market. UBS pleaded guilty for its role in manipulating the Libor benchmark interest rate.
Attorney General Lynch stated that this illegal activity went on every single day for the last five years or so. The financial crime is staggering in its complexity and collusion.
The Justice Department says traders used online chat rooms and coded language to manipulate currency exchange rates. Traders openly boasted that they were the cartel or the mafia as they conducted their dirty business. It also comes as no surprise that these banks will pay a paltry $3 billion for their brazen anti-trust violations and none of the individual bank employees will be liable for criminal charges.
Unless the Justice Department uses it heavy hammer on prosecuting white collar crime this type of illegal activity will surely continue. The $3 billion penalty is probably a small fraction of the profits made from these illegal trades.
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