Timeline8 cases
Cocaine-era laundering cases pushed banks into currency reporting and produced the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986, while insider trading and the "Savings & Loan Collapse" defined Wall Street and Main Street fraud.
Italy's largest private bank collapsed with funds missing through offshore affiliates; chairman Calvi was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London on 18 June 1982.
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$1.287 billion unaccounted forThe Sicilian Mafia moved heroin through US pizzerias and laundered proceeds through banks and brokerages; arrests on 8 Apr 1984 led to a 17-month trial and 18 convictions in March 1987.
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$1.65 billion of heroin, 1975 to 1984The bank pleaded guilty to failing to report cash transactions with nine foreign banks over four years, a case that put the Bank Secrecy Act on bank boards' agendas.
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$1.22 billion unreported; $500,000 fine, then a recordIvan Boesky pleaded guilty in 1986 and cooperated; Drexel pleaded to six felonies in December 1988, and Milken pleaded guilty to six counts on 24 Apr 1990.
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Boesky $100 million penalty; Milken $600 million in fines and SEC paymentsA teenage founder's carpet cleaner faked an insurance restoration business that made up 86% of reported revenue.
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Peak value $280 million; about $100 million lostCustoms agent Robert Mazur posed as a launderer for cartel money; October 1988 arrests in Tampa led to the convictions of BCCI bankers in 1990 and opened the door to the BCCI case.
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$14 million laundered at trialRegulators seized Lincoln on 14 Apr 1989; investors had been sold worthless parent-company bonds, and five senators were rebuked for intervening with regulators.
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$3 billion+ cost to taxpayers; about 23,000 bondholders lost savingsA Los Angeles network wired Medellín cartel profits to Latin America within 48 hours; 127 people and two banks were charged on 29 Mar 1989.
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About $1.2 billion over two years1980s
Books first, then official reports and court records, then key journalism, grouped by case.
