US bankers admit security lapses

Senior American bankers have testified before the United States Congress that they failed to take sufficient action to prevent money-laundering by foreign criminals.

Appearing before the Senate Investigations subcommittee, executives from Citibank acknowledged serious lapses in security procedures, which were highlighted in a recent report by the panel.

In particular, the bank is accused of failing to prevent millions of dollars in profits from a Mexican drug cartel from being passed through special accounts reserved for off-shore banks known as correspondent accounts.

The bankers said they were improving monitoring to prevent abuses in the future. The Senate began its probe in response to a money-laundering scandal at the Bank of New York in 1999 involving Russian criminals.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service