Jul.03, 2010, 23:21

Wachovia admits at least $110 million laundered through its branches

US banks are playing a crucial role in the running of the Mexican drug trade, allowing their facilities to be used to launder money in a drug war that has taken the lives of more than 22,000 people in the past four years, a new investigative report reveals.

According to a report from the August, 2010, issue ofBloomberg Markets magazine, both Bank of America and Wachovia are implicated in drug-money laundering schemes to purchase jets to smuggle drugs.

The report, by Michael Smith, chronicles the seizure of a DC-9 jet at a Mexican airport in 2006 which contained $100 million-worth of cocaine. Investigators found that drug smugglers had bought the plane with money laundered through BofA and through Wachovia, which was bought out by Wells Fargo in 2008.