The 5 Most Cartoonishly Evil Banks of All Time

The whole thing eventually collapsed in 1980 with co-founder Francis Nugan's suicide, but if you're hoping this story ended with some swift and merciless justice, we're sorry: Aside from Nugan, pretty much everyone involved got off scot-free. Hand was last seen boarding a plane with a false beard, and all the remaining senior employees have refused to testify, which is something you're apparently allowed to do if you're rich enough.

As for its depositors, they lost everything. But honestly, if you do your banking with Nugan Hand -- the most plainly ominous business name this side of the Dark Brotherhood -- you were probably prepared for the inevitable dramatic double-cross.

Founded in the 19th century with the backing of the Vatican, Banco Ambrosiano's mission was to provide an alternative to secular banks, because we all know that the only person you can trust more than a banker is a high-ranking official of the Catholic Church. A mere century of holy deposits later, they were the second-largest private bank in Italy. More than a bank, actually -- they were a sacred institution. In the 1970s, CEO Roberto Calvi was known as "God's banker."

Surely, with a title like that, nothing could go terribly and ironically wrong ...

The Evil

God probably should've joined a credit union. Calvi used most of his time in charge of Banco Ambrosiano to launder the Mafia's drug money, bribe Italian and American politicians, and sell weapons to both sides of the Nicaraguan Civil War.

Eventually, however, Banco Ambrosiano got too big for their own frock, and things started to fall apart. A 1982 investigation revealed that the bank could not account for around $1.3 billion in deposits. Keep in mind that, while today's banks blow that kind of cash on breakfast champagne and gold-leaf toilet paper, $1.3 billion in 1982 dollars was basically all of it. All of the money.

Even the Mafia got spooked by all the heat the holy bank was bringing. They started cutting both ties and the throats they were wrapped around: A high-ranking regulator was found dead in Corsica shortly before Calvi's secretary committed suicide, and Calvi himself was found hanging from Blackfriar's Bridge in London -- a death ruled a suicide until basic common sense and a 2003 re-examination uncovered that it was pretty definitely a murder.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's probably because parts of The Godfather: Part III were based on the scandal. That's right: terrorism, death, embezzlement, war, sinister political machinations, AND The Godfather: Part III. Truly, Banco Ambrosiano is responsible for some of the worst tragedies known to man.

The Evil

Banks are like vomit: They're pretty easy to take care of when contained in one place, but once you spread them over a wide enough area, everyone just pretends they can't see the mess, rather than risk having to clean it up.

We, uh ... look, nobody said we were good roommates.

Back to the banks. Being no one's responsibility gave BCCI free rein to embark on a massive crime spree that would make Grand Theft Auto proud: laundering money for Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, brokering illegal nuclear weapons sales, selling top-secret American technology to Iraq, running one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, and doing the financial dirty work for virtually every major terrorist group in the world.

They stopped just shy of spawning a tank and ramping it into a prostitute. BCCI even started their own private enforcement squad called the Black Network (Cobra Commander would be so proud) to take care of all the extortion, kidnapping, and murder that is apparently such a big part of tracking deposited money. When suspicious U.S. regulators refused to grant them a banking license (our banks usually don't have elite, shadowy fighting forces -- it really hikes up the insurance rates), BCCI just shrugged and employed some front companies and fraudulent loans to circumvent the law, and got right back to evilin' up the place.

BCCI's massive network of influence kept them consistently just a few steps ahead of the law. In the end, it took 62 countries conducting seven simultaneous raids to finally bring them down and 13 years to sort out where the money was. Even now, no one fully understands everything BCCI was up to, but we would be shocked -- shocked -- if it didn't involve some kind of laser and a moon base.

The Evil

In the early 1970s, someone at the IRS realized that Hyatt hadn't paid any taxes since they opened their account at Castle Bank. This is generally frowned upon in polite society, as Mssrs. Hammer and Nelson can testify. So the IRS hired a grizzled private investigator named Norman Casper to look into it, because if there's one lesson we've learned in this article, it's that accounting is WAY more exciting than we've all been led to believe. Over the next few months, Casper distracted his targets with beautiful women while he photographed their secret files and gathered intelligence. Using the old "squick and click" method, Casper discovered that not only was the bank acting as an illegal tax haven for clients like former President Nixon, it was also laundering money for the friggin' mob.

Then, out of nowhere, the CIA stepped in and stopped the investigation.

Turns out the CIA had used Castle Bank & Trust to funnel money to anti-Castro groups (and anyone else with a big enough haterection for the communists). No one was ever prosecuted, but the bank collapsed, and all of their clients (including CCR) lost their deposits. And that's why Creedence Clearwater Revisited has to rock your shitty county fair to this very day.

The Evil

If you've ever talked to their customer service people about their BS "annual fee," it should come as no surprise that HSBC was founded on centuries of murder for profit. In 2012, investigators discovered that they had been helping fund international terrorism and the Mexican drug trade for decades. It wasn't an occasional thing, either. Here's the extent of their familiarity with the cartels: At one point HSBC considered enlarging their teller windows because the boxes of cash they were accepting were too big to fit through the normal ones (possibly the least sympathetic problem we've ever heard of). So the Sinaloa Cartel (responsible for tens of thousands of murders in the past decade alone) did their old pals a solid and started using custom-designed money boxes specifically to fit through HSBC branch windows.

So if they're so blatantly corrupt, why hasn't anybody caught them? The answer is simple: They totally have! Many, many times. You've heard of the term "too big to fail"? Well, here's an addendum: "... and too rich to give a damn when they do."

When HSBC was caught a third time, the authorities got serious and handed them a $1.9 billion fine. Staggering, right?

That's roughly five weeks' profit for HSBC.

Again, nobody went to prison for this blatant money laundering. They didn't get grounded, or even sent to their room without supper; they just had their allowance docked for like a month. That wouldn't teach an uppity child not to shoplift, much less a major financial institution that supporting mass murderers isn't profitable. When asked why these people are allowed to Snidely Whiplash their way around the country with no repercussions, the U.S. assistant attorney general explained, "Had the U.S. decided to press criminal charges, HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat, and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."

So there you go, straight from the mouth of the U.S. government itself: Banks can do whatever they want, because they have our money. If you're considering canceling your HSBC card in light of these revelations, well, we're sure they'll cry themselves to sleep over it. Maybe they can fit some bigger windows to get those extra-large boxes of tissues in there.

Alex has no Internet presence, but wants you to check out this awesome album of electronic music by JugularNotch, which you can download right now!

Related Reading: If all this fiscal fuckery has you bitter about banks, read this article about incredible heists. Like the time Swedish robbers reenacted Die Hard at a Post Office. And money isn't the only thing you can store in a bank: you can fit a ton of sperm in one. Unless you're a ginger, runt or minority! Last, balance things out by reading about life in poverty.