Edit: Thanks for the corrections. I definitely messed up the magnitudes here. Was doing some other calculation on another topic and somehow I mixed them both. Sorry about that. Please disregard this comment as it it way off :(
While "trillions" is definitely inflated and hyperbole, I don't think it's THAT far off.
According to this The Guardian article [0] "At least $881m in drug trafficking money was laundered throughout the bank's accounts."
So 0.88 Tn. Definitely not "trillions" but definitely much more than I would've expected if they said "billions laundered".
Also, it says "at least", which I take it to say that the investigation was not complete so a final number couldn't be calculated and only a "lower" cap is given. Potentially it could still be "trillions" as in e.g. "1.3 trillions" (if that final figure is ever calculated or even published of course). So inflated, yes. Hilarious... not so sure.
While "trillions" is definitely inflated and hyperbole, I don't think it's THAT far off.
According to this The Guardian article [0] "At least $881m in drug trafficking money was laundered throughout the bank's accounts."
So 0.88 Tn. Definitely not "trillions" but definitely much more than I would've expected if they said "billions laundered".
Also, it says "at least", which I take it to say that the investigation was not complete so a final number couldn't be calculated and only a "lower" cap is given. Potentially it could still be "trillions" as in e.g. "1.3 trillions" (if that final figure is ever calculated or even published of course). So inflated, yes. Hilarious... not so sure.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/11/hsbc-bank-u...