‘Banks turned blind eye to graft in South Africa’

Bloomberg

UK lawmaker Peter Hain accused international banks including HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc of aiding and abetting graft in South Africa during former President Jacob Zuma’s rule and earning considerable fees in the process.
The lenders enabled members of the Gupta family, who were Zuma’s allies and in business with his son, to launder stolen funds and remove them from South Africa by allowing them to open accounts and granting them access to their banking network, Hain told a judicial panel headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo in Johannesburg.
“All the warning signs were there and they turned a blind eye to them and now they claim they know very little about it, which frankly I do not believe,” said Hain, who is a Labour Party member of the House of Lords and has campaigned against graft in South Africa, where he was born. “They are international operations and they should be held accountable.”
More than $33.9 billion was pilfered from state firms and government departments during previous administration.