Between 2004 and 2010, HSBC laundered Billions of Dollars for the Mexican Drug cartels and nobody blinked an eye. After
7 years of doing this, they got busted and they paid US$1.9bn in fines. {This could be recovered in profits, within a few
weeks} Most people saw this as a slap on the wrist for the people who were involved with this. Not one person working for the
Bank got jail time for doing this.
https://observer.news/featured/5-years-ago-hsbc-fined-record-us1-9bn/Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for creating and running Silk Road, which allegedly facilitated
the sale of $250 million worth of drugs.
Why are we seeing such double standards, when Bitcoin is involved?
Basically, the handy feature bitcoin has that's really attracted a lot of money launderers is the anonymousity of bitcoins. It can be sent without it being traced by anyone. No bread crumbs, no problems, right? But the thing is, you have to exchange it for cash so it still imposes a lot of problems for money launderers.