Macquarie Bank Raking In Black Market Tobacco Profits
The ABC has reported that the Macquarie Group through its Next Payment’s ATMs is profiting from the black market tobacco trade in Australia. This multibillion dollar trade downunder is fuelling gang war slayings and making the nation a much more unsafe place. Macquarie bank raking in black market tobacco profits. Yet another loophole exists for criminals to launder their ill gotten gains in Australia – through private ATM machines. You get the strongest sense that authorities are not serious about stopping such things when they continue to allow flagrant violations by banks.
“It’s known as the millionaires’ factory: one of the nation’s most prestigious investment banks, with a reputation for creating enormous fortunes from blue-chip companies. But an ABC investigation has found that among multi-million-dollar investments held by the prestigious Australian-founded Macquarie Group is a company raking in dollars from the nation’s booming illegal tobacco trade. At the centre of the deal is the provision of networks of privately owned cash-dispensing ATMs that have been placed in tobacconists despite their links to criminals and blatant illegal sales activities.
The arrangements — which in some cases allow shop owners to load their own cash into the machine — highlight a regulatory black hole facilitating tax avoidance and money laundering, according to experts. Macquarie’s link to the trade is via its 47 per cent ownership in private company Next Payments, which is supplying the private ATMs to businesses.”
ATMs Controlled By Macquarie Group Laundering Black Market Profits
The ABC investigation has revealed that these ATMS have been placed in tobacco shops linked to criminals. Nothing stands in the way, it seems, of highly profitable arrangements with businesses for this organisation. Banks just love making money for nix, especially downunder. Australian banks are among the most profitable in the world. This is not the first time our banks have been caught out profiting from illegal activities.
Apathy Towards Black Market Tobacco Trade Shown By Authorities
The black market tobacco trade in Australia is viewed by many as a fair result of the unfair taxing of the legal trade in tobacco. This is despite the fact that all the consumers buying these illegal ciggies are lining the pockets of organised crime. The gang war murders with guns which make the nightly news are a direct result of this multibillion dollar trafficking. The arson attacks on tobacconists around the nation are another nightly occurrence because of it. The apathy shown by the police and governments to do much about this trade in black market tobacco is apparent to the observer.
Calls To Raise The White Flag
The current situation reveals the antipathy held by the law and order brethren toward those in health who have driven the high taxing of smokers in this country. Lung cancer costs some $450 million each year and lots of lives as well. Things would have been worse if not for the strict measures, which have cut the rates of smoking in Australia. However, there is a tiredness about it all, with calls for the lowering of taxes on tobacco in response to the burgeoning illegal trade and criminal activity. It seems there are plenty of officials ready to put up the white flag.
“The cancer type with the highest expenditure was breast cancer ($1,056 million, including $269 million on the national screening program), followed by non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC, $1,005 million), bowel cancer ($876 million, including $56 million on the National Bowel Cancer Screening program), prostate cancer ($684 million), non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL, $481 million), lung cancer ($448 million), myeloma ($322 million), kidney cancer ($198 million), chronic myeloid leukaemia ($182 million) and brain and central nervous system cancer ($180 million), which together comprise 54% of all health system expenditure on cancer.”
There is, I think, a rationale by bankers that the flow of money is a pure thing. That a strong flow of the stuff should be honoured by those in the business of money – banks. Human beings, generally, kow tow to signs of success. Expensive accoutrements, like nice clothes, luxurious homes and cars are admired. How wealth and success are garnered are neither here nor there for many of us. The wealth factory, Macquarie Group, may well fall into this category. The evidence provided by the ABC in their latest investigative report does not contradict this assumption in any way.
“We are living in a time of financialization and zombie neoliberalism. The GFC and subsequent crises have discredited neoliberalism but it lives on zombie-like in the actions and policies of governments. Generations of politicians have grown up never having to actually do anything but talk on the TV. Never being truly responsible for any economic activity but commentating on it instead. Much of their role nowadays involves being talking head puppets making sage predictions with few consequences. Spending billions on endless reviews by PwC and Ey and legions of consultant lawyers and accountants.”
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters and America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
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