HSBC, Wachovia, Bank of America Launder Mexican Drug Money | Twenty million people in the U.S. regularly use illegal drugs, spurring street crime and wrecking families. Narcotics cost the U.S. economy $215 billion a year — enough to cover health care for 30.9 million Americans — in overburdened courts, prisons and hospitals and lost productivity, the department says. “It’s the banks laundering money for the cartels that finances the tragedy,” says Martin Woods.

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